If 100 homeless people were given $750 per month for a year, no questions asked, what would they spend it on?
That question was at the core of a controlled study conducted by a San Francisco-based nonprofit and the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.
Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.
$750 a month would improve the lives of plenty of people who aren’t homeless too. Up to and including the middle class.
But I suppose a UBI is a non-starter everywhere in the U.S. but Alaska.
You want universal anything it’s an uphill battle because of the cattle shouting about the cost or some nonsense.
Those who will make more money with UBI will just be mad they get taxed slightly more.
Our corporate oligarchs already pitch a fit about collective bargaining, universal healthcare, and adjusting minimum wage to match inflation. I can’t imagine they’d react well to a universal basic income except by raping the fading middle class even more.
The universal healthcare one baffles me because it would save businesses money and increase employee retention. But corporations still fight against it.
Having healthcare tied to your employer is both a way for companies to pay less while offering more benefits to entice new workers and also keep workers from fighting too hard for their own rights because now maintaining a job is directly related to health. If we had universal healthcare, companies would have to compete more directly on wage and that would cost them more. Providing healthcare, while negotiating for deals for said healthcare means they can say that they are providing more benefits than they actually pay for.
And if people’s healthcare isn’t tied to their jobs there would be more people willing to start their own business increasing the chance of competition.
I’ll also add on two other factors:
The health care industry (insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospital administration, etc) make up a very sizeable portion of both the economy and the workforce. Gutting that will have very large knock on effects throughout the country
But the other aspect? While this has likely shifted a bit due to the republican jihad on medicine of the past couple years, the US has really good healthcare… for those who can afford it. Because with health care costs so high (even accounting for the bullshit insurance companies and hospitals pull), you can get paid quite a bit if you are a specialist in some form of medicine. For a lot of specialty treatments we are (or at least were) still one of the better places on the planet to “get sick”… if you can afford it. And countries like the UK have issues with preventative care simply because of how overworked health care workers are (on account of people being able to afford it…). You’re a lot less likely to die if you get sick, but it is also “harder” to not get sick, as it were.
Personally? I think our health care system is so fucked that it is hard to do much worse. But hybrid models (I think it is Denmark that is often held up as a great example of this, but also grain of salt because Left Leaning Millennials have a massive chubby for anything “nordic”) where you have a government provided/supplemented baseline “basic human rights” health care system but the ability for employers to offer premium care seem like the way to go.
Which is why I still prioritize UBI over health care reform. Because all of the above will result in a lot more people needing UBI. And while I acknowledge it is portrayed as a dystopia for a LOT of reasons, I still think the Martian model in The Expanse is probably what we as a society need. UBI and housing so that people aren’t dying in the streets if they can’t get enough shifts at Wendy’s. But a strong incentive to still pursue higher education (the cost of which definitely needs adjusting…) or to work less than desirable jobs to be able to afford luxuries and a higher quality of life. Effectively a hybridization of “Capitalism” and “Socialism” as it were.
So nordic
That would basically cover my student loan payments, so it would be equivalent to loan forgiveness for me. Improve is an understatement, that would actually allow me to save money. Right now my wife and I make slightly above area median income and we’re just treading water financially. This would be a game changer. We could actually consider having a kid.
For what it’s worth 750 a month is probably less than what a kid costs. Depends on where you live but that seems decidedly low price for a kid
It cost near $7k in healthcare costs when my son was born. That’s $1750 a year so far…
It’s more than that per month just for childcare, assuming they are anticipating they will continue to work. It’s significantly more than that in food, Healthcare etc per month. If all you need is $750/month to have a child, than you can already have a child.
But the reality is, their lifestyle will eat that $750, and they’ll continue thinking they can’t afford to have a child. And, frankly, they probably can’t. Children are for the poor and the upper-middle class and above. It’s weird, but it’s true.
A non-starter unless it’s building up pro fossil fuel constituency.
/murica eagle screech
Imagine having money, but still being stuck in Alaska.
Almost like the 1% are stealing from each and every one of us. With a fraction of their profits each one of us would live a better life.
“What can we do to help these people whose problem is that they don’t have money?”
“Give them money?”
“That’s just crazy enough to work!”
Wait a sec. You’re telling me that giving money to people that don’t have money helps them do things that require money?! I’m shocked.
Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.
I feel extremely bad for the control group.
yeah. stuff like this really feels like human experimentation (because it kinda is). i wish people were more willing to just implement these UBI programs at the government level. the results would be so nice
$750 a month would be life altering for me.
Life altering like you can buy food and clothes?
yes
and perhaps sleep on an actual bed for the first time in over 20 years.
$750 a month is like $9000 a year.
I spend $500 on groceries!
I think this program would help a lot in so many ways and I hope it passes.
Now watch how out of touch conservatives are when they start claiming that these people are living in luxury. It’s a great project and I’m not trying to demerit the people in charge, but $750 doesn’t go far at all in a place like San Francisco
Remember when they flipped their shit over obama phones? Like, poor people were getting free or low cost cell phones. The horror! What’s next, food stamp steaks? What? You mean food stamps aren’t limited to gruel and powdered milk?
Ppl in SF are sure as shit not turning that down. At the minimum that’s your food for the month sorted out.
Oh yeah for sure, it’s a great thing. I’m just trying to get an “in” before any conservatives come ITT and start talking about how this will just enable them or let them live easy. Like you said, it’s enough for food and maybe somewhere to sleep and that’s about it
When they say “live easy” they mean it literally. They’re against the idea of a society where people can easily get the bare necessities without having to put in effort and work for it. As if that’s a bad thing.
You work for the luxuries, you should be able to live, as in keep your heart beating, with relatively little effort in a country that produces such excess.
Giving people money improves their quality of life?
Who would have guessed?
All these UBI experiments ever seem to demonstrate is the “BI” part.
But the part that needs to be demonstrated, IMHO, is the “U”.
Well we can’t do that until we do that. And shitting on the experiments means we’ll never do the Universal part.
It’s not the critics of the experiments that are the problem.
The “experiments” are just watering down the idea of UBI into “just rename existing benefits programs”.
You’d need to restructure an entire country’s tax systems to really do a proper experiment. No country could just afford to give everyone free money. You’d have to structure it so the average person pays back exactly what extra they got, and build affordable housing for the people that actually choose to live on just UBI.
We can’t meaningfully advocate or plan for its implementation unless we have some idea how it would work. And that it can work.
The sorts of experiments in the OP get us no closer to that. They prove nothing that wasn’t already pretty uncontroversial and obvious, and offer no insights about how these programs might be implemented universally.
Pointing this out does not hold back UBI. Ignoring it, however, does.
We know it can work. We know how it will work. The math works, the psychology works, there’s nothing else left to do but do it. This is just the latest in a long line of studies on this going back decades. Doubting it at this point is just putting your head in the ground.
The math works
This is the part where the citations you link are extremely important.
How will it work, then?
Everyone gets x amount. As you go up in tax brackets y amount is subtracted at tax time until you get high enough that the entirety of x is reclaimed. For this there are several programs we can completely shut down and the same funding would provide anywhere from 500-1500 dollars a month. (Depending on whose math you believe).
everything you’re saying here and in the replies makes perfect sense and is very clear. unfortunately, it looks like you’re arguing with someone who isn’t willing to listen to reason
That sounds like means-tested welfare programs, which we already have. UBI by definition is unconditional.
In other words, you’re talking about “BI” but I’m asking about “U”.
There is no means testing. The IRS has all the information it needs already. Getting rid of the means testing is where the bulk of the available money comes from.
And as far as the Universal part goes, we can’t do that until we actually do it. Asking to test that is a bad faith argument used by the GOP because it’s literally impossible to do without actually implementing the program.
We’re honestly not at a point where UBI is sustainable. However, this clearly demonstrates that replacing existing welfare with straight up cash, and changing how that cash scales down as people approach a “normal minimum” income, is vastly superior to our current system
There’s also been a lot of success with providing housing to the homeless. When they have stability, they use it to create a better life for themselves, and that translates to lower costs in terms of enforcement, ER visits, legal aid, and incarceration.
The US doesn’t provide for this in federal policy because we like our laws to reflect the cruelty and malice we have in our hearts for perceived undesirables.
If you are mentally ill or had a streak of bad luck, it’s your own fault. Be smart and get born rich like almost every rich person does. My God why are people so stupid?
/sWhoa there rich people were born the same way we were. They followed a simple 7 step plan.
- Stay in school. Even if it’s stupid and boring.
- Don’t get D’s in school or else Dad has to make another donation and that comes out of my allowance.
- Keep my nose clean. Nobody thinks cocaine powder is a fashion accessory.
- Start a business.
- Get 1 million dollar “loan” from my parents.
- Have my parent’s lawyer “talk” to the town council about why I didn’t need permits for my business.
- Graduate college and activate my trust fund!
See rich people work hard to get rich.
The overwhelming majority of people who inherit wealth lose said wealth within 3 generations.
70% by the second generation and 90% by the third
750$ a month changed the lives of people that had nothing? Yeah, right. Obviously!
Studies that test obvious expectations are actually super important. Sometimes the results are not what you expect, and the rest of the time, you have a study to point to whenever someone tries to say there’s no evidence of that outcome.
The problem is this is the umpteenth study in the US alone. We know it works. It’s just a bunch of rich people crying because they’d lose leverage over their “workers”.
Wow, that’s a big deal to me to learn that. I would have never considered that. Thanks a lot, very bro of you.
Well, there is an opinion that homeless people would use all money for booze, tobacco and drugs, etc. A study like this helps to contradict such opinion.
What else are people supposed to use their money on. People be projecting all the time.
One red flag here is that they don’t mention how they chose whom to give the stipend to.
That being said I think its a great idea and correlates with other studies that show that money is the best thing you can offer someone who’s struggling. Not food, not shelter, money.
I’m not an American but this will be tough to sell as you guys are notorious for porking away public funds (e.g. covid payouts) so this is much more complex than the article implies.
easiest way to avoid misuse is to give it to all. if your doing alright you will pay more tax equal to what you get, if your struggling it will be a boost, if your in mills/bills club you will pay more than your getting. Anyone who falls to the struggling level would have it immediately though with no paperwork or offices to go to and less bureaucracy to pay for (have to add this for the folks who don’t see why its helps them if they are not getting a net gain)
Agree. Simple systems are more resistant to corruption.
For the purpose of this study, though, they did not give it to all. There was a control group that was not getting any money whatsoever, along with…ya know, the rest of the homeless in the area that weren’t part of the study.
If all participants were chosen entirely at random, ok, but if there was a selection process, then that’s going to affect the results.
you’re = you are
Your = possession
No. Shit.
Seeing as California has one of the worst homelessness problems in the U.S., it seems like a great testing ground for this policy. Maybe if they pass this into law and it helps them reduce their homelessness population, it could potentially be adopted elsewhere.
That being said, California is no stranger to permissive laws with respect to the homeless, and that’s part of the reason their homeless population is so high, so…I’m skeptical, but willing to be proven wrong.
