Until the economy adjust for the additional money in the system and prices rise, thereby going back to square one. A universal basic income is impossible without strict price controls.
paxys · 2h ago
While I agree with UBI at a philosophical level, attempting to study it scientifically with a sample size of N people in an existing functioning economy is pointless. If 10 people have UBI and 1000 others are doing regular work, you can't turn around and say "see how much happier the 10 people are!" Of course they are happy. They earn more money than their neighbors for doing less work. Now give everyone else the same amount of money and see how things play out. Is rent going to be the same? Is anyone going to be working menial jobs? Is UBI going to increase income inequality by sending more money to the capital class (like say COVID relief checks did)? We won't know all this until such an experiment is done at an economy-wide level.
cheeseomlit · 2h ago
The cited studies, like most sociopolitical studies, probably don't prove anything. The article doesn't specify how the subjects were selected, unless I missed something. If I were an advocate for UBI and wanted to organize a study like this, I'd make sure to select people who are likely to keep working and not just quit and smoke weed all day so I could reinforce my narrative. If I were an opponent of UBI I'd do the opposite and enroll people who are unlikely to keep working when they don't have to.
FireSquid2006 · 23m ago
Copied from the study
"To determine whether the measured effects were actually due to receiving the basic income and not, for example, to broader societal developments, the Basic Income Pilot Project was designed as a randomised controlled trial. This ensured that the participants in the control group were so-called 'statistical twins' of the basic income group. This meant that they were very similar in their sociodemographic characteristics and differed mainly in whether or not they had received a basic income.
Both groups were essential to the success of the study. Only by comparing their experiences could scientific conclusions be drawn.
To prevent bias, care was also taken to ensure that both groups included equal numbers of ideological supporters and opponents of basic income.
The study focused on people between the ages of 21 and 40 living alone in a household with a net income of between €1,100 and €2,600 per month. We explain why these characteristics were chosen in our journal."
M95D · 15m ago
> quit and smoke weed all day
Arguably, those people won't be productive members of the society either way. With UBI, they could even be less likely to shoplift, mug/rob people, or otherwise cause harm.
wirrbel · 2h ago
I studied at a German university where one of the prominent advocates for universal basic income, Götz Werner (the owner of a well-known German health and beauty retail chain), gave several talks. As a member of a student club, I participated in a smaller event with him, which allowed for plenty of questions and interaction. At that time, the concept of universal basic income wasn’t particularly associated with left-wing politics.
To summarize: Universal basic income can be seen as a kind of negative poll tax (a poll tax being a fixed tax per person). Werner argued that the current tax system is unsustainable because it places a disproportionate burden on labor. He suggested that instead of taxing income, we should tax consumption—essentially, by significantly increasing sales tax and eliminating income tax. Of course, this would make life unaffordable for low earners, so a negative poll tax (i.e., a basic income) would be necessary to make higher sales taxes socially acceptable.
In practice, a large portion of the universal basic income would end up returning to the state through sales tax anyway.
Even back in 2010, I sensed that Mr. Werner was promoting a system that would benefit his own financial interests. As an employer with high labor costs, he would gain from lower taxes and fees associated with employment in Germany. And, as a wealthy individual, only a small part of his wealth would be subject to sales tax, since he wouldn’t need to spend most of it on taxable purchases.
When pressed about numbers (how high the sales tax, how high the negative poll tax) he just wouldn't discuss numbers saying society would have to figure it out and potentially one might start out with some amount and then progressively increase the negative poll tax, increase the sales tax and decrease other taxes. It really felt like someone not having done any actual simulations / calculations.
oh and one thing he really emphasized is, that UBI could allow for people to go from like a 40h work week to a 30h work week being employed and use their fridays for example to become entrepreneurs/artists/etc. That really felt like as close to prosperity gospel as one can get in germany.
goalieca · 27m ago
Trump was inspired by a similar consumption tax based on tarrifs and he oft cited the days before income tax. He was expecting Congress to provide an income tax relief package to compensate.
msgodel · 2h ago
It's barely worth showing up to work now, how are they going to motivate anyone to maintain any of this stuff?
bryanlarsen · 2h ago
To be sustainable, UBI has to be sub-poverty levels. Anything more than about $1500 is not monetarily feasible.
Not very many people are going to be happy living on $1500/month. Most people will keep working.
msgodel · 2h ago
I'd be fine with half that. What luxuries justify spending 8 hours a day dealing with insane corporate bullshit?
hollerith · 2h ago
A wife and a couple of kids. Having more options in life, e.g., to pick up and move.
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2025/msu-study-finds-number-of... (“We found that the percentage of nonparents who don’t want any children rose from 14% in 2002 to 29% in 2023,” said Jennifer Watling Neal, professor in MSU’s psychology department and co-author of the study. “During the same period, the percent of nonparents who plan to have children in the future fell from 79% to 59%.”)
As long as it's not about free money I don't see anyone objecting.
wtcactus · 2h ago
I’m middle class and I live in Europe. Counting all the contributions I’m forced to give the state, they now take about 60% of all I earn.
And here we are talking of giving even more free money to people that don’t work.
Who is going to pay for that? Am I going to have to work even more or are you going to let me keep even less of my money?
mettamage · 2h ago
I really hope it will be AI/robots.
It probably won’t but one can hope.
keybored · 2h ago
Universal Basic Income is the billionaire’s consolation price for the working class once the workers have automated the economy to a certain degree. They get to keep the resources while the workers/former workers get to subsist “for free” on a livable pittance. Helped along ideologically by useful idiot multi-millionaires[1] who chant about “just upskill”/“just be Mensa-level intelligent”.
What a strange position this is (from the link): "the future of work is being more than one deviation from the statistical norm"
This by definition can apply to only 16% of people who are at least one deviation above the mean.
What about the other 84%?
msgodel · 2h ago
Reality is not one dimensional.
keybored · 2h ago
I think the SC software mindset here is: I am in that group, got mine. The analysis ends there. And the higher your perceived ability the less worried you are about the future.
"To determine whether the measured effects were actually due to receiving the basic income and not, for example, to broader societal developments, the Basic Income Pilot Project was designed as a randomised controlled trial. This ensured that the participants in the control group were so-called 'statistical twins' of the basic income group. This meant that they were very similar in their sociodemographic characteristics and differed mainly in whether or not they had received a basic income.
Both groups were essential to the success of the study. Only by comparing their experiences could scientific conclusions be drawn.
To prevent bias, care was also taken to ensure that both groups included equal numbers of ideological supporters and opponents of basic income.
The study focused on people between the ages of 21 and 40 living alone in a household with a net income of between €1,100 and €2,600 per month. We explain why these characteristics were chosen in our journal."
Arguably, those people won't be productive members of the society either way. With UBI, they could even be less likely to shoplift, mug/rob people, or otherwise cause harm.
To summarize: Universal basic income can be seen as a kind of negative poll tax (a poll tax being a fixed tax per person). Werner argued that the current tax system is unsustainable because it places a disproportionate burden on labor. He suggested that instead of taxing income, we should tax consumption—essentially, by significantly increasing sales tax and eliminating income tax. Of course, this would make life unaffordable for low earners, so a negative poll tax (i.e., a basic income) would be necessary to make higher sales taxes socially acceptable.
In practice, a large portion of the universal basic income would end up returning to the state through sales tax anyway.
Even back in 2010, I sensed that Mr. Werner was promoting a system that would benefit his own financial interests. As an employer with high labor costs, he would gain from lower taxes and fees associated with employment in Germany. And, as a wealthy individual, only a small part of his wealth would be subject to sales tax, since he wouldn’t need to spend most of it on taxable purchases.
When pressed about numbers (how high the sales tax, how high the negative poll tax) he just wouldn't discuss numbers saying society would have to figure it out and potentially one might start out with some amount and then progressively increase the negative poll tax, increase the sales tax and decrease other taxes. It really felt like someone not having done any actual simulations / calculations.
oh and one thing he really emphasized is, that UBI could allow for people to go from like a 40h work week to a 30h work week being employed and use their fridays for example to become entrepreneurs/artists/etc. That really felt like as close to prosperity gospel as one can get in germany.
Not very many people are going to be happy living on $1500/month. Most people will keep working.
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2025/msu-study-finds-number-of... (“We found that the percentage of nonparents who don’t want any children rose from 14% in 2002 to 29% in 2023,” said Jennifer Watling Neal, professor in MSU’s psychology department and co-author of the study. “During the same period, the percent of nonparents who plan to have children in the future fell from 79% to 59%.”)
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-... ("64% of young women say they just don't want children, compared to 50% of men.")
A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/28/a-record-...
The childfree are ungovernable - https://beneaththepavement.substack.com/p/the-childfree-are-...
(us specific, ymmv)
And here we are talking of giving even more free money to people that don’t work.
Who is going to pay for that? Am I going to have to work even more or are you going to let me keep even less of my money?
It probably won’t but one can hope.
[1] https://infosec.exchange/@codinghorror/114606355212363074
This by definition can apply to only 16% of people who are at least one deviation above the mean.
What about the other 84%?