During the worst of covid, Australia upped the unemployment benefit by almost double (it had been unsurvivably low).
All of a sudden, not only were the long term unemployed able to buy things like healthy food, interview clothes and medicines, but the rate of job applications soared.
No one expected people to use that money to look for work.
If my household received UBI, it would primarily go towards hiring services for my disability so my husband could actually have some time to rest. With the exception of when he’s at the gym or sleeping, he’s either working or taking care of me. It’s literally not possible for one person (and me) to do everything that needs to be done to take care of me on top of a full-time job, so we’re always scrambling to keep up with what’s most critical and our well-being suffers for it.
I have always thought the people saying that UBI would create more lazy bums, was really coming from business owners who offer awful jobs under really poor conditions and what they were really saying was - no one would keep working for me as I am an arsehole with awful work conditions - you are right, it is a tireless endless complaint as to why not to have UBI, the very thing we could all begin to live for and with and truly uplift our lives and the lives of those around us .. it's big corp scared that everyone will see the light and move on from the production lines
Spot on. Much of the fear around UBI really comes down to corporations and management worrying that people won’t want to stay stuck in awful jobs anymore...
Oh yes...."no one would keep working for me as I'm an arsehole with awful work conditions". Of course business interests use their super-lobbying power to stop the idea of UBI going ahead. But too our lily-livered "Labour", right lite governments don't take it ahead.
And here in the US, money that the poor families with children got during covid actually boosted the economy significantly. When you give extra money to rich people, they bank it. When you give extra money to poor people, they spend it!
Indeed, and it predictably cut child poverty in HALF. But then the yellow-dog lamestream Dems joined with the Rethugs and decided to abruptly reverse course, because reasons. And child poverty predictably redoubled.
I believe a similar trial run was done in a small city near me here in California and they saw the same results. It doesn't prove that an ongoing program like that wouldn't stagnate into more abuse as it aged, but that's still not an argument against it. When you compare the amount of fraud that the poor take part in against the amount of fraud that the wealthy take part in, there's really no debate about which has more impact on the economy!
Thanks, Katie, for an excellent read. I hadn't heard of these studies before. Saving for future reference!
As I'm sure you know Carers Allowance in the UK is below the minimum wage - this response to a petition advocating for its increase highlights the govts principle is 'work and earn' (the lack of understanding about what carers have to do in this country ...is enraging - understatement)
*In the UK, Carer's Allowance is paid at a rate of £83.30 per week, which is approximately £2.38 per hour, and caring for at least 35-hours a week. The National Minimum Wage for 21+ year olds is £12.21 per hour.
There is little motivation to change, given that carers constitute the invisible backbone of social care, providing continuity of communication and medical support that is often absent in today's UK medical system. BUT mostly that
In 2022, the Centre for Care published new research on valuing carers. This found that the economic value of the support provided by unpaid carers in England and Wales is an estimated £162 billion per year, 29% more in real terms than 2011. Carers UK estimate that this is roughly equivalent to the budget for NHS health service spending which was £156bn in England in 2020/21 according to Kings Fund research. (Carers UK Facts and Figures https://www.carersuk.org/media/5dxf4i2l/facts-about-carers-feb-2025-final.pdf)
AND people wonder why the UK over 50 yrs population is dropping out of work?! More people will be leaving work at the height of their careers to care for 'Baby boomer' parents, or set up as solopreneurs to manage as Sandwich generation.
I think it’s clear that those who set that rate and refuse to change it have never actually met a carer or understood how emotionally, mentally, and physically draining the job can be. It’s an absolute shame. Care work has always been the backbone of our world.
"Back in the 1970s, the Canadian UBI experiment known as ‘Mincome’ produced similarly positive outcomes: better health, lower rates of mental illness, domestic violence, and workplace injuries, all with no significant drop in employment."
Canada tends to be more accepting of these ideas than the U.S. (Medicare came to Canada first, in part because of the advocacy of politician Tommy Douglas), but only up to a point. Attempts to limit dependence on work for a living can only go so far without resistance..
We definitely need more mechanisms that provide financial security - and UBI is promising. Why is there hesitation to adopt UBI for a substantial City, region or even a country? I think the trials so far have been relatively small-scale and the research questions for policy-makers would want to assess long-term impact on the labour market, health, education over a much broader area. Saying that, major policy decisions have been made in the past with much less evidence.
I think there also needs to be studies around the addiction in extreme wealth, how much harm it creates and the impact on the happiness of the addicts themselves. They never appear to have enough, that says there is an extreme internal lack.
Until the USA can flush many of politicians of my age (around 7th decade) this will be a lost cause here. A particular issue that popped up during Biden's effort to get the economy going after COVID-19 pandemic was met with the traditional argument: Their constituents would just use the stimulus funds to go fishing and cut work
Typical of such BS were statements was Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. A typical Southern Slaver who looked down on nearly everybody, and with disdain if they weren't rich enough or White enough to garner his attention
Great insight including studies/research references from many different countries all coming to a similar conclusion. Yet, many of these same countries currently need to contend with growing homelessness. Affordable housing and UBI are both important and curiously, come at a much lower cost than trying to deal with encampments of tent dwellers, drug addictions and petty crimes to survive. Clearly, the cost of building a strong dam is a fraction of the cost of the destruction caused by the failure of a dam. (just an analogy ...) Avoidance is the best investment.
It's so good to read a positive article about UBI with sound content and evidence of its worth.
Sadly, social indoctrination (socialisation) and legacy common sense (common nonsense) are extremely powerful and mitigate against unbiased appraisal of ideas or notions contrary to the 'norm.' In addition, the average John or Jane Doe does not understand or read research results, even in summary; indeed many of them wouldn't know that research in such an area as this was undertaken - despite there having been many studies.
We also have a society, even a world, where 'economics' is seen as the ultimate arbiter of what is worthwhile, what is good, bad or indifferent. Not least to our detriment is that it is a hierarchical concept and one which, over generations, has led to the fallacious notion that our raison d'être is 'work' and if not that extreme, at least it is seen as a necessity of life. Hence our governments place high emphasis on employment participation rates and similar.
The opinion of economists are also given exceptional regard, despite the obvious bias that may exist because, as a generalisation, they both thrive because the current preoccupation with paid employment costs, production, growth, and inevitably have a bias towards one school of thought or another. Governments and major employers also give far more credence to the utterances of economists than ought to be the case. These factors are a major concern and mitigate against the adoption of UBI because they tend to ignore the reality of human experience and ability to experience 'life' as opposed to focus on 'living'.
Currently, North America has $ trillions in debt and much of it personal and unnecessary. The system promotes over-expenditure not to survive or meet basic needs but to indulge and/or display status over others. It is an obnoxious situation and part of the contradictory actions of blue-collar and disadvantaged 'workers' supporting Trump and *believing* his hypocritical and delusional claims of benefit to them despite him being one of the privileged and small billionaire group who have nothing at all in common with his major base.
Until there is a wide increase in understanding that 'work' or 'earning a living' is not the basis for a good life and happiness and that materialism is a negative rather than a positive and that 'trickle down' economics is a proven delusion, then it will be virtually impossible for a UBI to come about. That saddens me but I believe it to be the truth.
The greatest 'happiness', regardless of how that term is expressed or felt, comes from sharing with others, contact, moments, experiences, wonders of childbirth, children, nature, the environment, the vicarious experiences from reading a good book, the warmth felt in giving or receiving a genuinely thoughtful gift that acknowledges understanding and empathy with what brings one joy.
None of those elements of 'life' as opposed to 'living' is achieved through work, save perhaps that of a a craftsman, artist or artisan who literally lives for their creativity - and generally any benefits or wealth they have will be an incidental result of that love, not the motivation for it.
As Winston Churchill once said, and I paraphrase slightly: "What one gets gives you a living; what one gives gets you a life."
There is much profundity in that statement and much of it relevant to the comparison between our preoccupation with the supposed inevitably and worth of 'work' as opposed to the freedom and human advancement and increased equity that would result from UBI.
I have been researching this as well, and it’s clear that UBI and other similar social safety net programs help people to change their relationship with work. In short, a safety net makes people harder to exploit. It’s similar to the way that women are less able to be abused and exploited by men now that it is possible to have economic security outside of men. It doesn’t mean that no one gets married anymore, but it means that women have more choices about who they partner with (also a controversial idea these days 😩). Here’s what I have written about this, just in case anyone is curious about this comparison! https://open.substack.com/pub/beccabailey/p/beyond-f-you-money-why-workers-need?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Great article. Coming from the left I love the idea of a universal basic income but I don't know a lot about it. One thing I do want to know and what the studies possibly won't show is what effect would it have on inflation etc. If everyone got it and had enough for basic needs like housing etc. would everything just become more expensive and house prices pushed up further so they're still unaffordable. So without fixing the issues we currently have with housing would it work? I'm guessing it would need to rise with inflation but what effect would this have would it push inflation up further again 🤷♀️
Also how many of the benefits are gained by the study participants being/feeling better off relative to the people around them who aren't in the study.
I have no idea but I'm sure a good economist like Gary Stevenson could shed some light.
There have actually been a few studies looking into UBI's impact on inflation ( like a research program in Mexico done around a decade ago, if I remember correctly) and they found little to no significant effect. If UBI is funded properly, through the redistribution of existing wealth rather than the printing of new money, the risk of inflation remains relatively low.
During the worst of covid, Australia upped the unemployment benefit by almost double (it had been unsurvivably low).
All of a sudden, not only were the long term unemployed able to buy things like healthy food, interview clothes and medicines, but the rate of job applications soared.
No one expected people to use that money to look for work.
That's such a powerful example!
If my household received UBI, it would primarily go towards hiring services for my disability so my husband could actually have some time to rest. With the exception of when he’s at the gym or sleeping, he’s either working or taking care of me. It’s literally not possible for one person (and me) to do everything that needs to be done to take care of me on top of a full-time job, so we’re always scrambling to keep up with what’s most critical and our well-being suffers for it.
I'm so sorry you and your husband are in that position. No one should have to sacrifice their well-being or risk burnout just to get by.
I have always thought the people saying that UBI would create more lazy bums, was really coming from business owners who offer awful jobs under really poor conditions and what they were really saying was - no one would keep working for me as I am an arsehole with awful work conditions - you are right, it is a tireless endless complaint as to why not to have UBI, the very thing we could all begin to live for and with and truly uplift our lives and the lives of those around us .. it's big corp scared that everyone will see the light and move on from the production lines
Spot on. Much of the fear around UBI really comes down to corporations and management worrying that people won’t want to stay stuck in awful jobs anymore...
Oh yes...."no one would keep working for me as I'm an arsehole with awful work conditions". Of course business interests use their super-lobbying power to stop the idea of UBI going ahead. But too our lily-livered "Labour", right lite governments don't take it ahead.
Ain't that the truth!
And here in the US, money that the poor families with children got during covid actually boosted the economy significantly. When you give extra money to rich people, they bank it. When you give extra money to poor people, they spend it!
And they typically spend it wisely: food, clothing, etc.
Indeed, and it predictably cut child poverty in HALF. But then the yellow-dog lamestream Dems joined with the Rethugs and decided to abruptly reverse course, because reasons. And child poverty predictably redoubled.
I believe a similar trial run was done in a small city near me here in California and they saw the same results. It doesn't prove that an ongoing program like that wouldn't stagnate into more abuse as it aged, but that's still not an argument against it. When you compare the amount of fraud that the poor take part in against the amount of fraud that the wealthy take part in, there's really no debate about which has more impact on the economy!
https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/guaranteed-income-pilot-program
Amen
Thanks, Katie, for an excellent read. I hadn't heard of these studies before. Saving for future reference!
As I'm sure you know Carers Allowance in the UK is below the minimum wage - this response to a petition advocating for its increase highlights the govts principle is 'work and earn' (the lack of understanding about what carers have to do in this country ...is enraging - understatement)
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700028#:~:text=Carer's%20Allowance%20is%20currently%20%C2%A3,around%20%C2%A3400%20per%20week
*In the UK, Carer's Allowance is paid at a rate of £83.30 per week, which is approximately £2.38 per hour, and caring for at least 35-hours a week. The National Minimum Wage for 21+ year olds is £12.21 per hour.
There is little motivation to change, given that carers constitute the invisible backbone of social care, providing continuity of communication and medical support that is often absent in today's UK medical system. BUT mostly that
In 2022, the Centre for Care published new research on valuing carers. This found that the economic value of the support provided by unpaid carers in England and Wales is an estimated £162 billion per year, 29% more in real terms than 2011. Carers UK estimate that this is roughly equivalent to the budget for NHS health service spending which was £156bn in England in 2020/21 according to Kings Fund research. (Carers UK Facts and Figures https://www.carersuk.org/media/5dxf4i2l/facts-about-carers-feb-2025-final.pdf)
AND people wonder why the UK over 50 yrs population is dropping out of work?! More people will be leaving work at the height of their careers to care for 'Baby boomer' parents, or set up as solopreneurs to manage as Sandwich generation.
I know many carers who'd welcome UBI.
I think it’s clear that those who set that rate and refuse to change it have never actually met a carer or understood how emotionally, mentally, and physically draining the job can be. It’s an absolute shame. Care work has always been the backbone of our world.
"Back in the 1970s, the Canadian UBI experiment known as ‘Mincome’ produced similarly positive outcomes: better health, lower rates of mental illness, domestic violence, and workplace injuries, all with no significant drop in employment."
Canada tends to be more accepting of these ideas than the U.S. (Medicare came to Canada first, in part because of the advocacy of politician Tommy Douglas), but only up to a point. Attempts to limit dependence on work for a living can only go so far without resistance..
Amen
UBI makes sense and I’d rather some of my tax money go to that than the things my taxes are paying for now.
We definitely need more mechanisms that provide financial security - and UBI is promising. Why is there hesitation to adopt UBI for a substantial City, region or even a country? I think the trials so far have been relatively small-scale and the research questions for policy-makers would want to assess long-term impact on the labour market, health, education over a much broader area. Saying that, major policy decisions have been made in the past with much less evidence.
I think there also needs to be studies around the addiction in extreme wealth, how much harm it creates and the impact on the happiness of the addicts themselves. They never appear to have enough, that says there is an extreme internal lack.
Agreed. If hoarding things is considered a disorder, why is hoarding wealth not treated as one too?
Precisely!
I wrote about it here https://open.substack.com/pub/mauratorkildson/p/what-can-we-do-about-extreme-wealth?r=5hylt&utm_medium=ios
Until the USA can flush many of politicians of my age (around 7th decade) this will be a lost cause here. A particular issue that popped up during Biden's effort to get the economy going after COVID-19 pandemic was met with the traditional argument: Their constituents would just use the stimulus funds to go fishing and cut work
Typical of such BS were statements was Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. A typical Southern Slaver who looked down on nearly everybody, and with disdain if they weren't rich enough or White enough to garner his attention
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/08/manchin-family-coal-company-00003218
The stubbornness around economic aid during crises really shows how out of touch some politicians are.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Great insight including studies/research references from many different countries all coming to a similar conclusion. Yet, many of these same countries currently need to contend with growing homelessness. Affordable housing and UBI are both important and curiously, come at a much lower cost than trying to deal with encampments of tent dwellers, drug addictions and petty crimes to survive. Clearly, the cost of building a strong dam is a fraction of the cost of the destruction caused by the failure of a dam. (just an analogy ...) Avoidance is the best investment.
It's so good to read a positive article about UBI with sound content and evidence of its worth.
Sadly, social indoctrination (socialisation) and legacy common sense (common nonsense) are extremely powerful and mitigate against unbiased appraisal of ideas or notions contrary to the 'norm.' In addition, the average John or Jane Doe does not understand or read research results, even in summary; indeed many of them wouldn't know that research in such an area as this was undertaken - despite there having been many studies.
We also have a society, even a world, where 'economics' is seen as the ultimate arbiter of what is worthwhile, what is good, bad or indifferent. Not least to our detriment is that it is a hierarchical concept and one which, over generations, has led to the fallacious notion that our raison d'être is 'work' and if not that extreme, at least it is seen as a necessity of life. Hence our governments place high emphasis on employment participation rates and similar.
The opinion of economists are also given exceptional regard, despite the obvious bias that may exist because, as a generalisation, they both thrive because the current preoccupation with paid employment costs, production, growth, and inevitably have a bias towards one school of thought or another. Governments and major employers also give far more credence to the utterances of economists than ought to be the case. These factors are a major concern and mitigate against the adoption of UBI because they tend to ignore the reality of human experience and ability to experience 'life' as opposed to focus on 'living'.
Currently, North America has $ trillions in debt and much of it personal and unnecessary. The system promotes over-expenditure not to survive or meet basic needs but to indulge and/or display status over others. It is an obnoxious situation and part of the contradictory actions of blue-collar and disadvantaged 'workers' supporting Trump and *believing* his hypocritical and delusional claims of benefit to them despite him being one of the privileged and small billionaire group who have nothing at all in common with his major base.
Until there is a wide increase in understanding that 'work' or 'earning a living' is not the basis for a good life and happiness and that materialism is a negative rather than a positive and that 'trickle down' economics is a proven delusion, then it will be virtually impossible for a UBI to come about. That saddens me but I believe it to be the truth.
The greatest 'happiness', regardless of how that term is expressed or felt, comes from sharing with others, contact, moments, experiences, wonders of childbirth, children, nature, the environment, the vicarious experiences from reading a good book, the warmth felt in giving or receiving a genuinely thoughtful gift that acknowledges understanding and empathy with what brings one joy.
None of those elements of 'life' as opposed to 'living' is achieved through work, save perhaps that of a a craftsman, artist or artisan who literally lives for their creativity - and generally any benefits or wealth they have will be an incidental result of that love, not the motivation for it.
As Winston Churchill once said, and I paraphrase slightly: "What one gets gives you a living; what one gives gets you a life."
There is much profundity in that statement and much of it relevant to the comparison between our preoccupation with the supposed inevitably and worth of 'work' as opposed to the freedom and human advancement and increased equity that would result from UBI.
Buckminster Fuller would certainly agree as well.
I have been researching this as well, and it’s clear that UBI and other similar social safety net programs help people to change their relationship with work. In short, a safety net makes people harder to exploit. It’s similar to the way that women are less able to be abused and exploited by men now that it is possible to have economic security outside of men. It doesn’t mean that no one gets married anymore, but it means that women have more choices about who they partner with (also a controversial idea these days 😩). Here’s what I have written about this, just in case anyone is curious about this comparison! https://open.substack.com/pub/beccabailey/p/beyond-f-you-money-why-workers-need?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Amen
Great article. Coming from the left I love the idea of a universal basic income but I don't know a lot about it. One thing I do want to know and what the studies possibly won't show is what effect would it have on inflation etc. If everyone got it and had enough for basic needs like housing etc. would everything just become more expensive and house prices pushed up further so they're still unaffordable. So without fixing the issues we currently have with housing would it work? I'm guessing it would need to rise with inflation but what effect would this have would it push inflation up further again 🤷♀️
Also how many of the benefits are gained by the study participants being/feeling better off relative to the people around them who aren't in the study.
I have no idea but I'm sure a good economist like Gary Stevenson could shed some light.
There have actually been a few studies looking into UBI's impact on inflation ( like a research program in Mexico done around a decade ago, if I remember correctly) and they found little to no significant effect. If UBI is funded properly, through the redistribution of existing wealth rather than the printing of new money, the risk of inflation remains relatively low.