this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
1029 points (98.6% liked)
Political Memes
9029 readers
2294 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Because your dad is wrong.
Many of the UBI-type (universal basic income) studies show that most people continue to work and in many cases they are able to increase their income from work in short order.
Turns out relief from chronic money stress liberates mental resources that increase personal resilience and that translates into better employment for many.
My dad is dead, tyvm. He was pretty sure he wasn't having a heart attack, so you're right that he was wrong.
But also my friend's dad is wrong about a lot of stuff, including when his son's and I are being sarcastic by saying "thanks Obama," and that it's an invitation for him to shit on social safety nets.
Has there ever been a UBI study that lasted the person's entire life?
Not that I can find. I volunteer if any scientists want to conduct one, though.
Not that I'm aware of, just because studies haven't even been considered for long enough to have lasted any entire lifetime, to my knowledge.
However, a many have been going for decades at this point, and there's some great summaries of the findings over these expansive timeframes from the Stanford Basic Income Lab where they have a map and many other resources.
The conclusions seem to remain consistent, across studies lasting anywhere from one-time payments, to months, years, or decades, and I think that the conclusions, while not set in stone, seem to be quite comprehensively backed up to the point that if they were deployed at a larger scale, it would probably show similar outcomes.
I believe Alaska has some sort of ubi. Maybe start there.
Gosh, I don’t know. Not a domain expert, just an avid reader of primary studies on subjects I like.
It would surprise me, but I bet there are other studies you could with post-hoc data analysis, perhaps on lifetime outcomes of people who receive only a small income from a trust over a long period, like people with a moderately prosperous grandparent who put together a meager trust for them.
I know a couple of people with such a situation. They could definitely make much different life choices, even in one case where the trust paid out about the same as the take home pay from a job in retail.
I feel confident predicting that a broader survey of such folks would show vastly different life outcomes, professional attainment, marriage stability etc. when compared to people who started out without that.
It’s sort of obvious but you have to beat people over their heads with data before concepts even get widely considered.
Of course they would fare vastly better. You could work an actual retail job and have double the income. You could be a festival weenie for four years, get therapy, figure out your shit, and network with the better off festival weenies. The point being the universe of realistic and attainable life paths expands greatly with even small amounts of basic income, being able to say no to a bad deal is huge.
Which is why we will need to implement global reforms against extreme wealth. Social mobility scares the hell out of billionaires.