this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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Sorry, but that is simply not true. Alaska has had a form of UBI for decades funded by oil revenues. It decreased inflation. Canada also has a basic income for families that also hasn't caused inflation.
With the introduction of this dividend in 1982, Alaska went from having the highest rate of inflation in the US to the lowest. Source
Not to dispute it, but the sources for the Alaska argument are a Twitter post made by the organization itself (which just says that businesses will have discounts when the check goes out) and a Medium post.
And the source used for the argument in the Medium post is a link to another post made by the same author. His proof that UBI reduced inflation is... A line graph of CPI comparing Alaska vs the US.
If the oil dividend caused the decrease in inflation, you would be able to find many scholarly articles on the subject, yet the entire proof is a single graph.
I did do some more digging and found that the graph from Scott Santens is supported by data from the stlouis Federal reserve. See stlouisfed graph
I think its largely common sense that businesses would have sales to when money goes out. The same thing happens when refund checks come out. The author is of course biased, but that it not a reason to discredit the data. Are you suggesting he fudged the numbers for the graph?
No one is claiming the dividend caused it because causation is notoriously hard to prove since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation. The author simply provides evidence in a graph that the after the dividend (Alaska's UBI) Alaska had a noticeably lower inflation rate compared to the rest of the US. Graph in question Take a look and make your own conclusions.
I wouldn’t really count the Canada one since it’s not truly “Universal”, but the Alaska one is interesting.
It honestly seems like it’s talking of some utopic society (“Businesses would continue to compete for our money by offering high quality at reasonable prices” - when has that ever happened in the past 20 years?), but it does bring some sources to the table so probably has a point, even if I still see that as overly optimistic.
Anyway mine was just a digression, I’m not going to vote against UBI or anything similar if it ever comes up, I think there’s better solutions but I’m definitely not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
We're talking about vastly different sums of money and access to infrastructure.
Alaska's 1600 per year is more akin to a tax refund. It's not dramatically changing anyone's income and if it is, they're barely scraping by regardless.
Alaska is also so remote that everything is more expensive.
If 300 million people suddenly had an extra 24,000 dollars to spend in a year, you don't think every business in the country would be scrambling to get their cut? Most companies see you as an obstacle between them and their money that you happen to be holding.
It may be on a smaller scale than is traditionally advocated for with a UBI like program, but it is a UBI. According to Wikipedia, the PFD(Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend) is a Basic Income in the form of a resource dividend. Any adult Alaskan resident is eligible for it whether or not they pay taxes. It's not a tax refund.
Of course they would be. That is why a lot of business offer sales, when the Alaska dividend check go out. They want to convince you to buy their crap. When businesses want money, they have to convince people to buy their stuff via sales and promotions. That usually means lower prices.
Ok and little league and MLB are technically the same sport but 8 year old Billie Jr isn't going to be throwing a no hitter at Fenway any time soon.
Technically being the same thing does not mean it will function the same way.
Perfect is the enemy of good in this case. I would much rather have a $100 UBI just to test out the system than have no UBI ever happen because people argue it has to X amount. It is however very important to tie it to inflation so it doesn't get effectively nickeled and dimed into continual cuts like the minimum wage largely has in many areas.
Yeah, it's kinda funny. The research papers tend to cite things like "wealth flight" and "housing price plummet" as economic concerns about UBI, yet whenever folks talk about it, we're all afraid of landlords just raising rent.
I'm not sure on either of them, but watching everyone argue both extreme opposite possible outcomes for it is funny.
Graph showing the last paragraph of my answer. I had to reply with another instance as lemm.ee has disabled images.
Graph from stlouis fed showing same data as embedded graph
Scott santens blog with graph