On Universal Basic Income

[brin_bellway]

[cw: poverty]


Posting this now because of this Slate Star Codex post, but it's been percolating for a while.

I know, I know, I'm super weird, the circumstances that shaped me are super weird and my responses to those formative experiences are apparently also kind of weird no matter how inevitable they seem to me, but it always boggles me the reactions that UBI discussions assume people will have to UBI.

True, if you gave me a USD$12k basic income (all else equal) there would be *short-term* changes in my lifestyle, as I bought the things I've been [procrastinating on buying because I can't afford them] but know will only get worse the longer I don't buy them (house repairs, car that doesn't actively suck). And there would be *long-term* changes in my lifestyle, as I could afford to retire sooner than I would have otherwise. But in the *medium* term nothing about my day-to-day life would change. I'd still be consuming about the same amount, working about the same amount, going through accountant training about the same amount: the only difference is I would now be saving ~100% of my labour income.

And a lot of that is purely my own weirdness, but here's an important factor that might very well be important more broadly: my government can't be trusted to keep its basic-income promises! Empirically! Of *course* I'm not going to make any plans that depend on a UBI program continuing to exist!

The only basic income I'll trust is a self-funded one: if other entities want to contribute to my fund I'll gladly take it, but every cheque that relies on somebody else deciding to give me money might be the last, and I will plan accordingly.

Comments

[contrarianarchon]

... Very good point! I also suspect my medium-term plan would be much the same as it is now, though I might drop down a tier in my degree with less worry.

(Also, I need to go read that post. My inbox has been piling up a bit)

[brin_bellway]

(Clarification note, since I'm writing a comment anyway: by "all else equal" I meant "not counting the effect on my environment from a bunch of *other* people getting basic incomes and (supposedly) changing *their* lifestyles because of it". The knock-on effects of the changes in the labour supply or whatever might cause my incentives to be *genuinely* different, but *me* having a basic income *per se* would not.)

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>>though I might drop down a tier in my degree with less worry.<<

I've noticed there are quite a few accounting jobs on local job-search websites that merely require a certificate, not a full bachelor's. (I seem to have lucked out: apparently the area I already live in has a reputation for being a good place to live if you want a job in finance.) Yeah, they're minimum-wage clerks, but you know what they say: the degree gets you the first job, the first job gets you the second job. If I spend two years as a clerk, now I can say yes to jobs that ask if I have two years' accounting experience.

(In general, I hear that one should do as little credentialing as one can get away with because the opportunity cost of not spending that time working is so high. And like, God knows Mom has gotten exactly zero use out of having a bachelor's (and I think technically *still* has student-loan debt, though the creditors aren't actively seeking it), while her son with a two-semester culinary diploma is in an extremely good financial position for a 21-year-old.)

I haven't completely solidified my plans yet, but I'm currently thinking I'll try for a summer internship next year (with no certificate, but in the process of getting one and--in particular--freshly trained in Excel), get a certificate in maybe two years, continue working towards a "two-year" (two years' worth of full-time schooling) certificate (which one then further builds upon into a bachelor's) while job-hunting during every break between semesters, drop out if I find somebody willing to hire me, and only go back if I ever find myself with no job in the field and no way of getting one. (Or *perhaps* if I find myself in a position where the only thing holding me back from a higher wage is a lack of bachelor's, depending on the amount of responsibility/stress/status the higher-wage job would entail; I would actively rather be one cog in a financial-documentation-producing machine than some high-powered executive.)

(Note: my school is *exactly* the sort of place that--should it come to that--would respond to "hey, remember that half-finished degree I haven't done any courses for in eight years? I want to finish it" with "yeah, sure, class starts next month". "People who are already working in the field but need a degree to advance further" is one of their primary demographics, as is "people who are working in a different field and need a degree to pivot to the field they actually want".)

[contrarianarchon]

Yeah, I'm in a five-year engineering degree but I think I basically just want to be a unimportant coder so if anything gets in my way I think I'll probably switch courses to compsci and do the last six months of classes. Being a proper engineer is a exception to like 90% of the degree-related bullshit because it's a unusually substantial qualification, but that's only really true if I end up working in the field which I'm qualified for.

>> I would actively rather be one cog in a financial-documentation-producing machine than some high-powered executive.

Oh man, yeah. Lack of ambition FTW! (Well, lack of career ambition leading to wanting the career of "have it have the smallest possible net impact on my lifetime through a mix of easy-for-me-specifically tech jobs and frugality to save up money for early retirement", which isn't actually not ambition, just, like, not traditional/competitive ambition?).

[brin_bellway]

I don't really get people who *don't* FIRE given the opportunity. My intuitive morality seems to be mostly egoistic: screwing over my future selves feels *evil*, and one of the most obvious ways to screw over one's future selves is to refuse to give them money.

I know damn well that I'm going into a field that's spent the last few decades getting gradually automated out of existence. I might very well have to pivot later, but the ideal is that by the time my *personal* niche is automated out of existence, I'm sitting on a large enough pile of investments that it doesn't matter.

After about 1.5 decades as a pretty well-off programmer, my dad was laid off and has never again made enough to meet his expenses. If he'd *prepared* for that, he'd probably have been fine! Even *without* deliberately preparing for a potential permanent layoff, he'd built up enough that (admittedly with the help of a part-time coding job for a few years there) it took him over a decade to burn through all his retirement funds and house equity! *With* three dependants!

If I end up in the same position he did, I want to be ready.

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>>(Well, lack of career ambition leading to wanting the career of "have it have the smallest possible net impact on my lifetime through a mix of easy-for-me-specifically tech jobs and frugality to save up money for early retirement", which isn't actually not ambition, just, like, not traditional/competitive ambition?).<<

Exactly! It's not that I'm *not* ambitious, it's that my ambitions aren't pointed at the traditional power and fame and fortune. I dream not of climbing ladders but of weaving safety nets. The only things really wrong with my current life are the constant high risk of it getting worse and the emergency measures taken to help mitigate this high risk (like ceasing our previous tradition of going out to dinner once a month on the lunaversary of my parents' wedding): [pre-emergency lifestyle] + [stabilisers] would be great.

Recently, to give a much smaller example, I bought some French fries covered in garlic sauce (and therefore definitely not finger food) from a little takeout place. I wasn't planning to take it home. I looked around and did not see any forks I could use. Rather than worrying, I shrugged and pulled my penknife-with-fork-attachment out of my bag. I love those moments, when something happens and you can just be like "yeah, I planned for this possibility, I know exactly how to deal with it".

(*After* eating, I spotted a basket of plastic forks on the counter, and possibly this is meaningful too. But even if it *would* in fact have worked out fine in the end without preparation, I didn't have the stress of the period where I thought it might *not*.)

[contrarianarchon]

I can see that argument, re: screwing over your future self, but most people seem to be comprehensively assured that they personally will be at least this well-off indefinitely, which is a terrible assumption.

Good luck re: racing your savings vs. automation. If anyone I know can make it, it's you.

>> I dream not of climbing ladders but of weaving safety nets.

Wow, this is a great line. *steals*.

And lastly, yes that kind of preparation is super good! Moment's like that are great!

(I would go back to having fork-items in my bag except I'm trying to minimize the amount of food I purchase while at uni because expense, and it feels counterproductive to prepare for scenarios I'm trying to get out of)

[yvannairie]

Yep, this sounds about right and would be like how me and most of my friends are thinking we would respond. I'd legit just go back to working three days a week, saving 600€ a month if I had access to UBI, and absolutely nothing else about my lifestyle would change.

[vyctori]

I've thought about this subject a lot, and honestly what would change for me is that I would be able to be a little more choosy with my students (there's one in particular I would immediately kick to the curb), and that I would have the time to do things that would in the long term earn me income (publish theory books and a curriculum guide), but in the short term would require me to have more time devoted to not earning a living then I can afford right now.

...Because yeah, fuck the Canadian government.