My dad used to say that it was more of an incentive to get the masses to actually work instead of just subsisting and bringing the general level of the economy down to the point that it can’t support UBI anymore.
I don’t see how anyone can worry about that when we look at how people behaved during the pandemic. Lots of people around the world were paid their normal wages and not allowed to work, and yes, Netflix was used a lot more, but labor intensive hobbies absolutely exploded. People aren’t happy just doing nothing all the time.
There have been numerous studies about this, and they have all shown that this doesn’t happen. Canada did a multi-year trial with one town in the 2000s (before the program was shut down and the records sealed/destroyed by the conservative administration once they gained power) that showed a drop in workers in only two groups: high-school kids and pregnant women. It also coincided with a general increase in economic activity as well as a sharp increase in both grades in school and the number of kids graduating and going on to college afterward- especially among poor households. The general theory was that the extra money created financial security in poorer households and high-school kids didn’t have to work/drop out and get a job to help put food on the table and could therefore focus more on school and have a better chance at going to college and better job prospects in the future, breaking the cycle of poverty.
My dad used to say that it was more of an incentive to get the masses to actually work instead of just subsisting and bringing the general level of the economy down to the point that it can’t support UBI anymore.
I don’t see how anyone can worry about that when we look at how people behaved during the pandemic. Lots of people around the world were paid their normal wages and not allowed to work, and yes, Netflix was used a lot more, but labor intensive hobbies absolutely exploded. People aren’t happy just doing nothing all the time.
There have been numerous studies about this, and they have all shown that this doesn’t happen. Canada did a multi-year trial with one town in the 2000s (before the program was shut down and the records sealed/destroyed by the conservative administration once they gained power) that showed a drop in workers in only two groups: high-school kids and pregnant women. It also coincided with a general increase in economic activity as well as a sharp increase in both grades in school and the number of kids graduating and going on to college afterward- especially among poor households. The general theory was that the extra money created financial security in poorer households and high-school kids didn’t have to work/drop out and get a job to help put food on the table and could therefore focus more on school and have a better chance at going to college and better job prospects in the future, breaking the cycle of poverty.
Yeah, seriously… Humans love to work. We just don’t like being told what to do and pressured to do it on someone else’s time frame
Motivation is surprisingly easy to come by when you reap the full benefits of your labor.