First results from a universal basic income (UBI) study in Stockton, California, shows that free money makes people happy, and that they spend most of it on basic needs like food and utilities, rather than on drugs, alcohol or gambling. Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs wants his $500 per month stipend experiment done statewide. Do these early results in a small-scale study bolster Democrat presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s White House run as he campaigns on a nationwide $1000 per month UBI plan?
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15 replies on “The Big Yang Theory: Study Shows $500/Month Free Money Makes People Happy”
The fools coming up with this study are a complete waste of air. Want to see the results of a lifetime of guaranteed income? Come with me this weekend when we go pick up a dozen or so virtually abandoned kids from the local Indian reservation. Years of “free” government checks has resulted in alcoholism, substance abuse, child neglect, poverty, filth, misery, and a disgusting waste of humanity. BTW – you’ll be keeping that toothless little kid for the two nights. Be prepared to have beds soaked every morning and little things of value “missing”.
As Slayer said so well in their 1996 remake… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wDIhn9_UzA
I can’t afford this free money program. I’ll have to pay the government $1500 for my free $1000 (~$500 government processing fee) plus an untaxed person’s free $1000, since about half the population doesn’t pay taxes.
That’s $2500 from me each month.
Between 15-20 years ago, when locally we had less than 3.5% unemployment, I worked for a growing company (300 people at the time). We were scraping the bottom of the barrel for new employees. Did not have the basic skills needed at all. I am talking about things like reading a tape measure accurately. How to torque a bolt. Our solution was to hire a bunch of people through a temp agency and put them through our own 6 week school. One of our senior supervisors set up a mock shop down the road in a leased building and taught school to groups of 10. They built, took apart, re-built product, learning the skills required. Reading blue prints, copper brazing, aluminum tig welding, and many more.
If they passed our school we hired them full time. If not, they went back to McD’s.
When we ran out of local people, we arranged to bring in 20 Bosnian refugees. Most of whom barely spoke english, but we taught them how to build our product.
Those two groups yielded some of the best employees and some are still there.
Point is, we needed skilled people. So we hired people who wanted to work and taught them the skills. That company now has over 1000 employees in four facilities.
No government agency told us to do it.
Minimum wage and other job subsidies interferes with the optimum allocation of resources. When too many people are doing a job the wages fall encouraging some of those workers to seek employment doing something else shifting resources from where they are needed less to where they are needed more. Our society as a whole becomes a lot less efficient and our standard of living falls.
This is no different than any other welfare program. It is designed to buy votes. The Politicians pushing this beyond the votes they garner don’t care what happens. Like our current welfare programs, the programs passed are poorly designed and incapable of achieving the stated goals, and per above, the politicians could care less.
This study is essentially worthless. It doesn’t really tell you how people are using the money because it’s fungible. What they spend with the debit card doesn’t tell you how that affected spending of other money, and of course they’re also allowed to pull the money out of the debit card account as cash. Self reporting is unreliable.
The study is also pointless. We already have a similar short term system known as unemployment insurance and a long term system in various forms of welfare. We could simply examine those for beneficial and detrimental effects.
A big part of the problem is that politicians and an all to large fraction of the population thinks that money comes from the government and does so at no cost. What is forgotten, is that the so called money represents a promise that the wealth it represents will exist when and if the “money” is spent.
No such thing happens for government provided “money”. The “money” is a demand for wealth that does not yet exist and that must be provided by the person(s) accepting the “money” for product that actually has been created at significant expense. In a very real sense, this “money” is paid for, coming and going, by the producers of wealth and not the government.
The whole charade is simply one more sneaky underhanded dishonest way for government to take and then give what it does not have and has not produced. In rational society it is called THEFT. In our society it is called “Compassionate Conservatism” and “Buying of Votes”. It is seen as a good thing by Democrats and too many other people of various political persuasions. It is unsustainable because reality is real and cannot long be evaded without catastrophic consequences. Oh but the party was so much fun!
To that very last point, I’ve long said that staff (hack) writers in TV only know how to write doctor shows, lawyer shows or cop shows.
Also as I recall the father’s in those old shows didn’t actually remove their ties, they simply took off their suit jackets and put on sports jackets with sleeve patches which always made me laugh.
Democrats cannot understand the basic math of economics. Can anyone say INFLATION? Government-provided money without obligation is akin to printing money, which devalues the currency; therefore all merchandise becomes more expensive. Inflation increases poverty.
Exactly. Money has value because it’s scarce. That’s why we spend so much on special paper and intaglio presses for currency. The value of a truly universal income would be zero, and prices would rise to approach that.
Yep. I think it will be a race to see if employers can reduce wages by $500.00 per month faster than the landlords can increase rents by $500.00 per month. All while goods and services become more expensive bit by bit. Fun times.
Wanting free money is a symptom of envy. Nothing good will come of it.
Not sloth?