If 100 homeless people were given $750 per month for a year, no questions asked, what would they spend it on?
That question was at the core of a controlled study conducted by a San Francisco-based nonprofit and the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.
Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.
$750 a month would improve the lives of plenty of people who aren’t homeless too. Up to and including the middle class.
But I suppose a UBI is a non-starter everywhere in the U.S. but Alaska.
You want universal anything it’s an uphill battle because of the cattle shouting about the cost or some nonsense.
Those who will make more money with UBI will just be mad they get taxed slightly more.
Our corporate oligarchs already pitch a fit about collective bargaining, universal healthcare, and adjusting minimum wage to match inflation. I can’t imagine they’d react well to a universal basic income except by raping the fading middle class even more.
The universal healthcare one baffles me because it would save businesses money and increase employee retention. But corporations still fight against it.
Having healthcare tied to your employer is both a way for companies to pay less while offering more benefits to entice new workers and also keep workers from fighting too hard for their own rights because now maintaining a job is directly related to health. If we had universal healthcare, companies would have to compete more directly on wage and that would cost them more. Providing healthcare, while negotiating for deals for said healthcare means they can say that they are providing more benefits than they actually pay for.
And if people’s healthcare isn’t tied to their jobs there would be more people willing to start their own business increasing the chance of competition.
I’ll also add on two other factors:
The health care industry (insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospital administration, etc) make up a very sizeable portion of both the economy and the workforce. Gutting that will have very large knock on effects throughout the country
But the other aspect? While this has likely shifted a bit due to the republican jihad on medicine of the past couple years, the US has really good healthcare… for those who can afford it. Because with health care costs so high (even accounting for the bullshit insurance companies and hospitals pull), you can get paid quite a bit if you are a specialist in some form of medicine. For a lot of specialty treatments we are (or at least were) still one of the better places on the planet to “get sick”… if you can afford it. And countries like the UK have issues with preventative care simply because of how overworked health care workers are (on account of people being able to afford it…). You’re a lot less likely to die if you get sick, but it is also “harder” to not get sick, as it were.
Personally? I think our health care system is so fucked that it is hard to do much worse. But hybrid models (I think it is Denmark that is often held up as a great example of this, but also grain of salt because Left Leaning Millennials have a massive chubby for anything “nordic”) where you have a government provided/supplemented baseline “basic human rights” health care system but the ability for employers to offer premium care seem like the way to go.
Which is why I still prioritize UBI over health care reform. Because all of the above will result in a lot more people needing UBI. And while I acknowledge it is portrayed as a dystopia for a LOT of reasons, I still think the Martian model in The Expanse is probably what we as a society need. UBI and housing so that people aren’t dying in the streets if they can’t get enough shifts at Wendy’s. But a strong incentive to still pursue higher education (the cost of which definitely needs adjusting…) or to work less than desirable jobs to be able to afford luxuries and a higher quality of life. Effectively a hybridization of “Capitalism” and “Socialism” as it were.
So nordic
They fight against it because the benefits are more long term than they tend to think.
Because it also gives employees more freedom. Tying healthcare to employment is insane and extremely expensive, but it also creates a worse power dynamic
It’s because there is no unified aristocracy. All those rich families are cordial but are out only for themselves. They can’t see that having all the menials healthy/housed/fed improves all their wealth.
That would basically cover my student loan payments, so it would be equivalent to loan forgiveness for me. Improve is an understatement, that would actually allow me to save money. Right now my wife and I make slightly above area median income and we’re just treading water financially. This would be a game changer. We could actually consider having a kid.
For what it’s worth 750 a month is probably less than what a kid costs. Depends on where you live but that seems decidedly low price for a kid
It cost near $7k in healthcare costs when my son was born. That’s $1750 a year so far…
It’s more than that per month just for childcare, assuming they are anticipating they will continue to work. It’s significantly more than that in food, Healthcare etc per month. If all you need is $750/month to have a child, than you can already have a child.
But the reality is, their lifestyle will eat that $750, and they’ll continue thinking they can’t afford to have a child. And, frankly, they probably can’t. Children are for the poor and the upper-middle class and above. It’s weird, but it’s true.
A non-starter unless it’s building up pro fossil fuel constituency.
/murica eagle screech
Imagine having money, but still being stuck in Alaska.
Almost like the 1% are stealing from each and every one of us. With a fraction of their profits each one of us would live a better life.
A fraction of a fraction. It really is mind-boggling how much money is being generated by some of these billionaires that isn’t being taxed.
Our oligarchs can’t feel like god without creating a hell to feel superior to.
Schadenfreude is a hell of a drug. Even many of our struggling citizens try to get a fix by blaming the powerless homeless and believing they somehow deserve to die of exposure, hunger, treatable disease, and police harassment.
“What can we do to help these people whose problem is that they don’t have money?”
“Give them money?”
“That’s just crazy enough to work!”
Wait a sec. You’re telling me that giving money to people that don’t have money helps them do things that require money?! I’m shocked.
Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.
I feel extremely bad for the control group.
yeah. stuff like this really feels like human experimentation (because it kinda is). i wish people were more willing to just implement these UBI programs at the government level. the results would be so nice
So do I, but their sacrifice has led to good quality data that shows that giving unhoused people money without conditions helps them to reintegrate, become housed and hopefully employed and again contributing to society as a whole. It’s a silver bullet against thinking like “don’t give that homeless person money; they’ll just spend it on drugs!” that we have been force-fed for decades. Hopefully, that may lead to better outcomes for them.
Giving people money improves their quality of life?
Who would have guessed?
Of course, but it’s not a very good experiment for a mass rollout. On a mass scale I hypothsize it will diminish motivation to find a job, thereby reducing the number of taxpayers, and that leads to the big question: who are you taking this money away from? 9 times out of 10 it’s middle class folks. 1%ers and corporations can afford to spend the money to get every single tax break, so middle class without those resources will end up paying most of the bill.
It’s been calculated multiple times that UBI would have a similar cost to existing welfare programs due to the significantly reduced overhead. Thus whoever pays for UBI are the same ones currently paying for existing welfare.
It might sound backwards but for a lot of people, myself included, not having a job will actually diminish motivation.
The frustration of applying for jobs and going for interviews with no response for months on end only adds to the stress of not having any money which adds up to a “what’s the fucking point?” train of thought, which hasn’t resulted in homelessness for me, but I could see how it would for other people.
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But why? Why punish people just because they are more successful than other people? The government doesn’t need to steal from successful people to give to those that aren’t.
The government doesn’t need to steal from successful people to give to those that aren’t.
It’s called taxes, not stealing, and yes they do. It’s quite literally one of the functions of a government.
I’m sure there isn’t a single millionaire that made it on their own. They had other people making that money for them.
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There is massive, long term UBI study happening ongoing in Kenya, and the results are extremely positive.
About 200 Kenyan villages were assigned to one of three groups and started receiving payment in 2018.
A monthly universal basic income (UBI) empowered recipients and did not create idleness. They invested, became more entrepreneurial, and earned more. The common concern of “laziness” never materialized, as recipients did not work less nor drink more.
Both a large lump sum and a long-term UBI proved highly effective. The lump sum enabled big investments and the guarantee of 12 years of UBI encouraged savings and risk-taking.
Early findings from the world’s largest UBI study, Dec 6, 2023 by GiveDirectly
Your hypothesis is an intuitive and common fear, and so has been studied before and found insubstantial, with Canada’s “Mincome” experiment being one of the most notable: in the 70s Canada targeted members of a town with a minimum income for five years, and saw results like people opening businesses with loans they could get now that they could cite the income. Where they saw people leaving jobs, it was often for education - their high school enrollment hit 100% for the senior year for the first time ever, due to the kids not needing to help bring in money. It was ended during a fiscal crisis when the government was looking for places to tighten belts. This BBC article is a good read on it, focused on the positive health impact.
It would push people to find better jobs; advocate for better working conditions, and actually have money to spend.
Sure, you can go work at a grocery store part-time while making your $750 for some extra cash. Most of that $750 is gonna go into grocery costs anyway, might as well make some extra money.
This experiment is not on basic universal income specifically, but UBI is about giving unconditional income to anyone to keep you afloat with day to day expenses. It’s not about giving you income so you could spend it on a holiday cruise. You are still expected to work if you want to have your dream holiday.
From who whose money will fund UBI? From taxing robots. Edit: I will add that this is once robots are sufficiently more capable than humans for work to displace our labour.
I pay enough taxes to support 125 $750 users like this and would gladly pay it, too. 125 people that are better off would have a significant positive impact to a community, and I’m all for it.
Also money that they spend, somewhere at some point would likely be taxed.
Your logic is flawed.
Rogan, is that you?
$750 a month is like $9000 a year.
I spend $500 on groceries!
I think this program would help a lot in so many ways and I hope it passes.
Multiply that by 653,000, and then ask how much you’re willing to chip in to that.
EDIT: people don’t seem to like reality sprinkled on top of their fantasy world where mere suggestions of how things SHOULD be automatically makes them so.
Sure, it would be nice to gut the defense budget to care for Americans in need. But you know we’re not doing that. So that leaves us to accept the reality of it:
It’s going to fall on taxpayers. And we’re strapped enough as it is.
So I ask again:
How much of that $5.8BN are all of you willing to chip in, k owing that we’re not selling aircraft carriers or raiding the defense budget coffers.
That is $489M. There are 160M tax payers in the US.
Everyone gives and extra $5/mo, and we can raise it to $1000/mo UBI. Then incorporate more people as the tax base increases.
That’s $5.85 billion dude.
750*653,000 = 489,750,000.
How so that $5.85B?
$9,000/yr multiplied by 653,000 is $5.8BN per year. Try and keep up.
Do basic math. If we are talking about $5/mo per person, that means you got $60/yr per person. 60*160M=$9.6B.
When taking taxes, 1 $10B isn’t a ton of money, let alone half that. And that’s just taking total tax payers at a flat rate. If you graduate it according to income, you could easily make this manageable for all persons. $5.89B is .13% of the total US tax revenue. So an additional .13% of tax revenue to help out .17% of the US population.
Keep up.
we could probably cut back on one of our 14 aircraft carriers
Right. So without resorting to fantasy, what’s a realistic suggestion.
If you want a serious answer, there are a lot of options. Closing tax loopholes for corporations, higher taxes for the wealthy, a freeze on additional military spending, stop outsourcing so much to contracted companies that blow through money for nothing (e.g. the reason why most people think government services are bad), etc. Those could all allow UBI to exist without raising taxes on the lower and middle class.
Again, I said- without resorting to fantasy. None of those things are even remotely possible.
Okay? It sounds like you just don’t want an answer. Many of those changes are actually very possible if more young people start voting in elections instead of just being apathetic or having that defeatist/“realist” attitude. If you think nothing can get better ever then yeah, every solution is “fantasy.”
They’re possible, but not remotely probable. And I’d love an answer. Just one that has a remote chance of actually happening. My head isn’t in the clouds banking on wishful thinking. I’m down here on the ground, trying to keep my expectations based on reality.
I realize this is an unpopular opinion, but as the saying goes:
A pessimist is a well-informed optimist.
$750 a month would be life altering for me.
Life altering like you can buy food and clothes?
and perhaps sleep on an actual bed for the first time in over 20 years.
yes
In my country that’s a very solid salary.
But it’s important to remain in context of the US and the starting point is around 0$, so having only 750$ still makes you very poor.
Now watch how out of touch conservatives are when they start claiming that these people are living in luxury. It’s a great project and I’m not trying to demerit the people in charge, but $750 doesn’t go far at all in a place like San Francisco
Remember when they flipped their shit over obama phones? Like, poor people were getting free or low cost cell phones. The horror! What’s next, food stamp steaks? What? You mean food stamps aren’t limited to gruel and powdered milk?
Ppl in SF are sure as shit not turning that down. At the minimum that’s your food for the month sorted out.
Oh yeah for sure, it’s a great thing. I’m just trying to get an “in” before any conservatives come ITT and start talking about how this will just enable them or let them live easy. Like you said, it’s enough for food and maybe somewhere to sleep and that’s about it
When they say “live easy” they mean it literally. They’re against the idea of a society where people can easily get the bare necessities without having to put in effort and work for it. As if that’s a bad thing.
You work for the luxuries, you should be able to live, as in keep your heart beating, with relatively little effort in a country that produces such excess.
All these UBI experiments ever seem to demonstrate is the “BI” part.
But the part that needs to be demonstrated, IMHO, is the “U”.
Well we can’t do that until we do that. And shitting on the experiments means we’ll never do the Universal part.
This isn’t really true.
We generally don’t experiment with economic policy because it’s not practical.
The main impediment to UBI is not supporting data, but political will. Voters are so used to punishing poor people that UBI just doesn’t resonate with the voting public. Of course that will change with the continuing encroachment of automation.
Additionally UBI is not all or nothing. You could increase it over time. If 20% of average salary is the objective, then start with 1% this year and increase it by 1% each year for the next 19 years. It will take 20 years to dismantle the other welfare systems anyway.
You know that’s a good point. It takes a few years to get a UBI up to full throughput anyways. I think part of the problem with that approach is it will be more expensive to start, at least on paper. And God forbid we spend money on anything other than the military. But it’s certainly true, we don’t need to switch it like a light switch by any means.
It’s not the critics of the experiments that are the problem.
The “experiments” are just watering down the idea of UBI into “just rename existing benefits programs”.
You’d need to restructure an entire country’s tax systems to really do a proper experiment. No country could just afford to give everyone free money. You’d have to structure it so the average person pays back exactly what extra they got, and build affordable housing for the people that actually choose to live on just UBI.
We can’t meaningfully advocate or plan for its implementation unless we have some idea how it would work. And that it can work.
The sorts of experiments in the OP get us no closer to that. They prove nothing that wasn’t already pretty uncontroversial and obvious, and offer no insights about how these programs might be implemented universally.
Pointing this out does not hold back UBI. Ignoring it, however, does.
We know it can work. We know how it will work. The math works, the psychology works, there’s nothing else left to do but do it. This is just the latest in a long line of studies on this going back decades. Doubting it at this point is just putting your head in the ground.
The math works
This is the part where the citations you link are extremely important.
How will it work, then?
Everyone gets x amount. As you go up in tax brackets y amount is subtracted at tax time until you get high enough that the entirety of x is reclaimed. For this there are several programs we can completely shut down and the same funding would provide anywhere from 500-1500 dollars a month. (Depending on whose math you believe).
everything you’re saying here and in the replies makes perfect sense and is very clear. unfortunately, it looks like you’re arguing with someone who isn’t willing to listen to reason
That sounds like means-tested welfare programs, which we already have. UBI by definition is unconditional.
In other words, you’re talking about “BI” but I’m asking about “U”.
There is no means testing. The IRS has all the information it needs already. Getting rid of the means testing is where the bulk of the available money comes from.
And as far as the Universal part goes, we can’t do that until we actually do it. Asking to test that is a bad faith argument used by the GOP because it’s literally impossible to do without actually implementing the program.
The problem is giving X amount per month to homeless people is not a representative study for something called “universal” basic income. It’s just a basic income for homeless people.
One of the biggest theoretical problems with giving everyone X amount per month is that it will simply drive up inflation since there are now $X/mo/person more in circulation (meaning everything will simply go up in price to absorb all that extra money). An experiment like this, as beneficial as it may have been for the participants, unfortunately has no value in proving whether or not that IS actually what happens.
This was my initial reaction also, but taking a closer look the article doesn’t say anything about UBI. This is not a UBI experiment.
Correct. It’s basic income for homeless people.
A fair point. But it looks, swims, and quacks like a UBI experiment.
Not really, you can’t criticise it for not being like UBI while saying it’s similar to UBI even if it does not purport to be UBI.
We’re honestly not at a point where UBI is sustainable. However, this clearly demonstrates that replacing existing welfare with straight up cash, and changing how that cash scales down as people approach a “normal minimum” income, is vastly superior to our current system
this clearly demonstrates that replacing existing welfare with straight up cash, and changing how that cash scales down as people approach a “normal minimum” income, is vastly superior to our current system
These experiments aren’t even trying to demonstrate that. And they don’t.
Except they do, because they show the value of fungible, no-questions-asked support
It’s not “BI” that needs to be demonstrated. It’s “U”.
Plus, these experiments do in fact ask questions about recipients’ income. Just like regular welfare programs.
There’s also been a lot of success with providing housing to the homeless. When they have stability, they use it to create a better life for themselves, and that translates to lower costs in terms of enforcement, ER visits, legal aid, and incarceration.
The US doesn’t provide for this in federal policy because we like our laws to reflect the cruelty and malice we have in our hearts for perceived undesirables.
If you are mentally ill or had a streak of bad luck, it’s your own fault. Be smart and get born rich like almost every rich person does. My God why are people so stupid?
/sWhoa there rich people were born the same way we were. They followed a simple 7 step plan.
- Stay in school. Even if it’s stupid and boring.
- Don’t get D’s in school or else Dad has to make another donation and that comes out of my allowance.
- Keep my nose clean. Nobody thinks cocaine powder is a fashion accessory.
- Start a business.
- Get 1 million dollar “loan” from my parents.
- Have my parent’s lawyer “talk” to the town council about why I didn’t need permits for my business.
- Graduate college and activate my trust fund!
See rich people work hard to get rich.
The overwhelming majority of people who inherit wealth lose said wealth within 3 generations.
70% by the second generation and 90% by the third
750$ a month changed the lives of people that had nothing? Yeah, right. Obviously!
Studies that test obvious expectations are actually super important. Sometimes the results are not what you expect, and the rest of the time, you have a study to point to whenever someone tries to say there’s no evidence of that outcome.
The problem is this is the umpteenth study in the US alone. We know it works. It’s just a bunch of rich people crying because they’d lose leverage over their “workers”.
Wow, that’s a big deal to me to learn that. I would have never considered that. Thanks a lot, very bro of you.
Well, there is an opinion that homeless people would use all money for booze, tobacco and drugs, etc. A study like this helps to contradict such opinion.
What else are people supposed to use their money on. People be projecting all the time.
It isn’t listed here in the citation, but tobacco, alcohol and drugs represented 2% of the expenses.
An important bit of information if someone’s gonna use it as an argument.
On 750 a month I could live in the forest somewhere and do occasional supply runs to replenish my tree fort. Or do a shit ton of drugs but either way I’d be pretty happy.
Tbh as long as you weren’t hurting anyone, putting others in danger and were happy I personally wouldn’t give a toss what you did with your money even if that came from taxes I paid. Better this then the current homeless situation.
Grow shrooms; do both.
One red flag here is that they don’t mention how they chose whom to give the stipend to.
That being said I think its a great idea and correlates with other studies that show that money is the best thing you can offer someone who’s struggling. Not food, not shelter, money.
I’m not an American but this will be tough to sell as you guys are notorious for porking away public funds (e.g. covid payouts) so this is much more complex than the article implies.
easiest way to avoid misuse is to give it to all. if your doing alright you will pay more tax equal to what you get, if your struggling it will be a boost, if your in mills/bills club you will pay more than your getting. Anyone who falls to the struggling level would have it immediately though with no paperwork or offices to go to and less bureaucracy to pay for (have to add this for the folks who don’t see why its helps them if they are not getting a net gain)
Agree. Simple systems are more resistant to corruption.
you’re = you are
Your = possession
For the purpose of this study, though, they did not give it to all. There was a control group that was not getting any money whatsoever, along with…ya know, the rest of the homeless in the area that weren’t part of the study.
If all participants were chosen entirely at random, ok, but if there was a selection process, then that’s going to affect the results.
I wish we have UBI.
ubi is unfortunately not really feasible from an economical standpoint, unless the amount is really low; then it can probably be funded by taxes, even within the current system…
but tbh I don’t think it’s worth it…
i think focus should be put on making work/the job market more fair and inclusive to everyone instead.In the future, it could be implemented by taxing robots. But even then, there is no guarantee that a future with UBI is as rosy as it is made to be.
