Scope and quality of UBI trials
- Many commenters argue existing “UBI trials” aren’t truly universal: they’re small, targeted (often unemployed or low-income only), short-term, and participants know they’ll end, which likely dampens behavioral changes (e.g., quitting jobs, moving).
- Reported effects from cited studies: modest reductions in hours, some shifts to part-time, small drops in employer pay. Critics say this is insufficient to extrapolate to permanent, nationwide UBI.
- Some call the article’s framing (“many successful trials”) misleading given these methodological limits.
Definitions and existing analogues
- Strong insistence on distinguishing:
- UBI: universal, unconditional, individual cash.
- Means‑tested welfare / Guaranteed Minimum Income / EITC: targeted or conditional.
- Pensions are cited as a de facto “UBI by age”: huge datasets show people largely stop working once eligible, pushing up dependency ratios; skeptics see this as a warning for UBI.
- Others cite current welfare and tax credits as partial analogues that did not collapse work incentives.
- Native American payments are raised as a “long-running UBI”; a reply argues dispossession and isolation, not payments, explain outcomes.
Inflation, rents, and price dynamics
- Core worry: if everyone gets, say, $1,000/month, landlords and other sellers will capture it via higher prices; some claim UBI is useless without strict price controls.
- Counterpoints:
- If funded by higher taxes and replacing other benefits, total money supply need not rise; inflationary impact could be limited.
- Housing prices depend on supply constraints, not just cash; UBI could enable moves to cheaper areas, making demand more elastic and potentially lowering rents in expensive cities.
- Discussion of existing landlord collusion, zoning limits, and historical examples (e.g., removed toll → higher rents).
- COVID cash transfers and student loans are cited as real-world examples of demand subsidies translating into higher prices.
Funding and tax structure
- One camp: UBI is “something for nothing” and arithmetically impossible at meaningful levels; any real scheme is just rebranded welfare financed by taxing workers more.
- Others propose flat-tax + UBI systems that are revenue-neutral but progressive in effect, with major simplification and replacement of many existing programs.
- Practical concerns: multi-trillion annual cost, impact on social security, and whether higher earners would keep working enough to sustain the tax base.
Labor supply, incentives, and culture
- Some assert that generous UBI would cause many, especially well-off, to stop working or avoid unpleasant but necessary jobs, threatening infrastructure and services.
- Others counter that people with savings already could live off investments but still work; UBI mainly raises the floor from “work or starve” to “work if it’s worth your time,” shifting people toward education, entrepreneurship, or better jobs.
- There’s a side debate over whether existing “non-working classes” or pensioners generate valuable cultural output, and whether expecting a creative renaissance from UBI is realistic.
Automation, post-scarcity, and timing
- Several see UBI as part of a future, robot-run, post-scarcity economy; argue it’s premature now given ongoing reliance on “shit jobs.”
- Others note AI is already displacing junior/administrative roles, and some redistribution mechanism will be needed; UBI trials should therefore be scaled up and taken seriously.
- A skeptical view: automation will concentrate control and make most people economically irrelevant rather than naturally producing a shareable surplus.
Public goods vs. cash transfers
- Some prefer prioritizing universal healthcare, education, housing, and transit over UBI, arguing these build real security, reduce complexity, and avoid inflationary cash transfers.
- Concern that UBI will be used politically to justify cutting public services, creating a dystopia of weak social infrastructure plus small stipends.
- Others respond that in places already hostile to public provision, UBI may be the only politically feasible way to improve security; a society with poor services + UBI is still better than poor services + no UBI.
Alternative designs and control risks
- Proposal: instead of UBI, use central bank digital currencies to give everyone credit lines earmarked for food, rent, healthcare, etc.
- Critiques: this turns benefits into debt, increases surveillance and behavioral control, centralizes power, and excludes those without IDs or banking access; seen as “digitized welfare,” not a new paradigm.
Gender, autonomy, and interpretation of results
- A study showing larger autonomy gains for women is described in the article as driven by gender inequality (pay gaps, care burdens).
- One commenter objects this is speculative for the specific, childless minimum-wage sample; labels it an ideologically driven explanation that might block exploration of other causes.
Macro outcomes and feasibility
- Some argue that in any closed currency area, a true, livable UBI for everyone has never been attempted; small-scale successes say little about full-scale dynamics.
- Others emphasize that productivity growth means societies can, in principle, support some people not working; the debate is over distribution, not physical feasibility.
- A recurring theme: UBI supporters see it as morally and socially necessary as work is automated; critics see economic incoherence or political impossibility.
Politics, morality, and meta-discussion
- One view: empirical evidence won’t matter; political elites act in self-interest and won’t adopt policies that genuinely empower citizens.
- Some see resistance to UBI as rooted in beliefs about who “deserves” support and in the usefulness of visible poverty for social discipline.
- Meta-concern about Hacker News flagging of UBI/AI threads and the ability of small groups to suppress certain narratives, with implications for AI training data and “defining truth.”