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185

Michigan’s $55M experiment with guaranteed income begins with Flint moms (www.bridgemi.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

FLINT—Eight days after entering the world, Khi’Meir Taylor made another debut — this time in what could be a national spotlight.

Wednesday was the first day of a $55 million experiment to test whether cash payments can protect children from the toxic stress of poverty.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Calling it now: They'll find that it works, but then nothing will change once the experiment concludes. Bought and paid for politicians will protect the wealthiest instead of allowing the poor enough to get by, doing everything they can to prevent UBI from being widely implemented.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

True, especially as many similar programs met the same fate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You kind of need to help pay for it by getting rid of government programs to allocate money piecemeal. That’s a huge change and a huge commitment, and politicians aren’t good at that.

…. Although I don’t know why the libertarian and other small government folk haven’t latched onto that opportunity

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

You need to do way more than that. In addition to canceling pretty much every entitlement, you still need more money to give everyone a check.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I am looking forward to the results. It's about time we start testing Universal Basic Income.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Really, we already have the results. And they're good results. Every single resident of Alaska gets oil dividends. I don't like that it's how they have a UBI, but it does give them one and it does help. The only problem is that the amount entirely depends on the oil revenue generated by Alaskan oil in any given year.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

TIL. I never knew that. Thank you I'm gonna look into this some more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Is it really every resident, or only legal US citizens?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Agreed.

I only wish it weren't a state or local-level thing. If we can find hundreds of billions for other countries' wars, in my mind, there's no excuse for UBI not being the law at the federal level.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Same, although I do understand that at the moment, it's only a local or state level thing because it's still in its early stages. I feel like once enough states or cities experiment then we can gather all that data to create a national system based off what works and find ways to limit abuses on the system.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I'm more interested in paying for domestic and reproductive work i.e. paying people to take care of their kids, cook their meals, mow their lawns, take out their trash, etc. Society can only function on the back of this unpaid labor after all.

UBI is okay too, though.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I get what you're saying, but at the same time, the income isn't replacing your entire income. I see more as supplemental income, kind of like a monthly food allowance where people won't have to worry about struggling for basic necessities.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Even parents who work 9-5 still need to do a ton of work around the home and for their children. That would also fulfill the supplemental role.

But more importantly, it would actually compensate people for the work they need to do to be part of society and keep it running.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't think that limiting this help to parents is the right plan. Doing that as a test, fine, but requiring people to have children to get financial assistance is not right.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Who said anything about limiting it to parents?

If you care for a relative you have to do all the same shit, and even if you live alone you still have to do things like cook and clean. Then if you're really industrious there's things like repairing your own car, mending your own clothes, growing your own food, etc.

We all do domestic labor, even if we don't have children. Having children would just increase the work load, and thus pay scale.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Again, I get the sentiment, but that form of system, especially seeing how you're explaining it, seems to create more problems than solve. How would one account for what they have done? It also seems that a system like this would be ripe for abuse.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Abuse as in, someone being paid for work they didn't do? That's... literally what UBI is lol

I will say that, while I prefer domestic and reproductive labor being compensated, I acknowledge it's not a simple problem. It would work in a highly communal society where people have very little time to themselves, since we'd all just see each other doing a good job. It would also work in a mass surveillance society since we'd all be watched 24/7, but that's not exactly good lol

UBI is fine. I'm just grumpy because its not perfectly fair.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

UBI is perfectly fair. The benefits to the lowest incomes is massively higher than the benefit to the wealthy while being a simple system that does not require any complex overhead to make sure the 'right' people are receiving it. The same as with public parks, roads, schools, fire departments, and any other public thing available to everyone that is paid through taxes.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Public parks and roads and schools and fire departments all have overhead to make sure they're being used correctly and being used by the people who should be using them. Letting someone who literally plays video games all day draw from UBI is like letting adults continue attending public school after they graduate, or the fire department blasting a house with water when it isn't on fire. They don't need it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Who is making sure the 'right people' use parks and public schools?

Fire departments serve everyone when there is an emergency.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We don't allow the whole community to attend social studies class, we don't allow people to farm in the park., and the fire department doesn't save people when there isn't an emergency. Your libertine conception of UBI has no parallel in any public service. There's always terms and conditions and stipulations and regulations and oversight and overhead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Okay, then how is this different from UBI? Are you supposed to keep a log of what you cleaned that day?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago

Hypothetically, someone who literally plays video games all day and doesn't clean up after themselves wouldn't get any income.

You raise a good point, though, that measuring domestic labor is hard. I spend an hour in the garden, was that because it was an hour of work or because I was working at a leisurely pace? I spent an hour vacuuming the house, is a government inspector going to come check? It's not a practical idea unless mass surveillance gets to a point where there's a camera in your eye that reports to the government lol

So like I said, UBI is fine. I just wish there was a way to compensate unpaid domestic and reproductive labor. That would be more fair.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

UBI achieves that because the person who does those things still gets an income without needing a job.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

to test whether cash payments can protect children from the toxic stress of poverty

The answer is yes. Obviously.

I keep seeing these pilot programs and small experiments in UBI, and they all prove that people prosper and thrive more when they have more money. Nobody is surprised. Was that ever even in question?

I want to see UBI experiments, plans, etc. that tackle large-scale implementation. We've proven "BI"; that was never the hard part. We need to focus on the "U".