This NPR coverage of @GiveDirectly's huge universal basic income experiment includes a couple observations I really want to highlight as results of UBI's universality: 1. Entrepreneurs galore! 2. No inflation! The huge entrepreneurship boost is a replication of all previous pilots that were provided to entire villages. This is BECAUSE of universality. When everyone in a community gets money, entrepreneurs start businesses, and those businesses have customers with money to spend. Just think of all the loans that have ever gone to people to start businesses that failed because they didn't have people around with the cash to be their customers. The lack of inflation is also attributed to the universality where no inflation happened BECAUSE the money was provided universally, not in spite of it. The researchers hypothesize that because everyone got money, it was spent on many different things, in contrast to targeted money that may have all been spent on the same thing. It is counterintuitive to think that everyone getting money could have less inflationary pressure than some people getting money, but that's what was observed. I think it also helps that so many new businesses were created. This increases competition and supply, raising overall capacity to meet demand, and increasing the amount of choices for customers, creating an incentive to compete on price. This is also observed in Alaska every year, where because everyone gets money when their UBI is distributed, businesses have dividend sales in order to entice people to spend their dividend checks there instead of elsewhere. I also just want to point out how large this experiment in Kenya is. These are the results of observing 23,000 people being given unconditional cash three different ways, that started 7 years ago. I'll also add something not included in this NPR piece, which is that people didn’t work less and the results were the same regardless of 2-year or 12-year treatment, meaning that all the observations of people not working less in short-term pilots are likely reflections of permanent UBI, and not because the pilots just weren't long enough as UBI opponents contend. In a perfect world, these results should be enough for governments to begin rolling out UBI. We of course don't live in a perfect world, but maybe at least one country will now step up and lead the way forward. For all previous UBI experiment results, please see my pinned tweet thread. npr.org/sections/goats…
A UBI, like Medicare for All means freedom. Freedom to speak one's mind, to create, freedom to start up a biz & create jobs. Freedom to run for office. It also sets the stage for social justice. Now, who would oppose that, but billionaires and their henchmen in congress???
@scottsantens @GiveDirectly You're going to get a very small but loud group of people that will strongly point out the section of Ubi recipients that stop working all together. Saying that everybody that gets Ubi is going to work permanently the rest of their lives is generally true but not completely true!
@scottsantens @dylanhs @GiveDirectly how there could not be demandful inflation is beyond me but seems unbelievable. You WANT demand pull inflation.
@scottsantens @GiveDirectly Private charity often works where government policy usually fails. There is something spiritual about giving that renders it more efficient than government taking and then redistributing.
@scottsantens @GiveDirectly Focus is always on the recipients. Spend some on the reduced admin if it's possible. It shouldn't cost so much to do anything especially give out money University bloat is a big topic. Many will never trust the govt will agree to do anything without their portion siphoned off
@scottsantens @GiveDirectly And when you bring in the fact that Ubi can be implemented based off the total automated production percentage of the GDP and coupled with a flat tax which is known for its fairness and have Ubi tax-free if spent on the card that's issued because its basic income. Beautiful.💯🤘
@scottsantens @GiveDirectly Kenya is closer to the UBI than we are in the USA. They have an article 43 in their constitution that clearly defines the state's responsibility to meet people's basic economic needs. That's much more advanced than our old decrepit constitution around here.
@scottsantens @GiveDirectly I’d never considered the boom to entrepreneurship through UBI. That’s truly an exponential impact!
@scottsantens @GiveDirectly Not inflationary. These studies are based on small population samples and the monetary impact is insignificant. When applied to a whole population segment, the inflation would be catastrophic. What do you mean that money was provided universally? Like out of thin air?