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>UBI-related experiments consistently find evidence that no participant responds to UBI experiments by dropping out of the labor force.

I'm not familiar with the details of these experiments but the first thing that strikes me is that this cannot be experimentally tested without guaranteeing participants a lifetime of UBI. They don't drop out of the labor force because they know it's temporary.

You wouldn't quit your job if you're only promised 2 years of UBI, because the cost that resigning has upon your future employability may be greater than the money from the UBI experiment. Or if you did quit, it would be to make a gambit (such as going back into schooling or training) that will leave you better off once the experiment is over.

The only reliable experiment design would be putting a few million per participant into some guaranteed annuities fund.



Buddy I’ve seen people quit jobs over way pettier things without UBI.


But have you seen a population of people quit jobs over pettier things? The studies aren't based on just one or two individuals.


A group is a collection of individuals. Anecdotes != data and whatnot, but by my observations people don’t always make purely rational economic decisions, so if you were going to a see people quitting over UBI you’d already see it.

Of course this hypothesis is as based in reality as yours, so the only thing we can do is try and find out.


With your caveat of "Anectodes != data and whatnot, but by my observations", people don't make rational food decisions when given free money. They tend to spend on snacks and sugar, not on veggies. Unless discipline is enforced, free money is a disaster.

Are you also going to have "free health care" with UBI ? That would be cataclysmic as you would need to also give free diabetic and obesity treatments until end of lifespan.




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