Denver's FAILED Experiment with UBI

On this episode of Common Sense Soapbox, Seamus eagerly discusses Denver’s failed Universal Basic Income experiment. As discovered, social issues like homelessness, addiction, and mental illness are too complicated to be solved with money alone.
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CREDITS:
Written by Sean W. Malone
Animated by Josh VanHalteren, Adamdonk, Emily Slatt, and LtAmazil
Voiced by Seamus Coughlin and nosoup4knowles
Layout by Jaime Velasquez, Trevor Smith
Produced & Edited by Sean W. Malone
Produced by Seamus Coughlin
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LINKS:

[theusher]

After hurricane Katrina, displaced Louisianans were given $2, 000 cash cards when they moved to my state. A watchdog group posted the purchase numbers made by those cards a year later. The top 3 purchases were
1: Flat-screen TV
2: Jewelry
3: Hooch

[sardonically-inclined]

"Yeah, but what if it's a lot of money?"
The amount of people that unironically think this way is headache-inducing.

[sevenguardians]

Seamus you have to do a short about closing the insane asylums and how Deinstitutionalization was handled became one of the major causes of the homeless problem today

[killer_rabbit]

There's also a reason these studies only run for a year or so, the chances of becoming homeless again go up after 3-5 years and some evidence shows it can be even less time

[johncrocker]

The cost of living would just increase until ubi was absorbed putting everyone receiving ubi back in the same position.

[james.lambert]

Denver wasn't even a proper UBI experiment. You would also need to raise the taxes from the same pool of people who are getting the UBI since that is how it would work in practice. Even you could prove that the UBI helped pull some people out of homelessness, you would also need to show that the additional tax burden didn't drive people on the edge down into homelessness.

[sharkdentures]

"YOU SAID SOMETHING WRONG & I'M HERE TO CORRECT YOU!"
Somehow, the meta self-awareness of that line made me BUST out laughing!
Thanks. I needed that.

[midnightfenrir]

Stop. Taxing. Income.
No other scheme, plan, plot, or platitude will matter more than that.

[nickmedley]

There’s good data out there that demonstrates when the homeless are offered work, even the most menial jobs; it drastically improves their chances of climbing out of homelessness. Empowerment and love/charity are much more effective at addressing the underlying problems.

[mediumeffort]

We already do have a massive program that mimics UBI to study, veterans disability pay.

For veterans who have a very basic level of impulse control, money management skills, and lucidity it’s extremely helpful for them and their families. For those who lack these things it’s not uncommon to see them living in a garbage fort under the Steel Bridge In Portland Oregon, despite getting $1, 700 a month from the VA.

That 1, 700 gets blown on drugs, alcohol, strip clubs etc. in a couple of days and it’s back to living in the garbage fort. It’s no different from people who win a few million dollars in the lottery who have blown it all in less than a year.

TLDR: Throwing cash at the problem only works for people who are mentally stable enough to solve their problems with an injection of cash (and it’s often the best solution for this cohort). People who are homeless from severe mental health/drug addiction problems need structured intervention and guided help, not a no strings attached cash boost each month.

[calebthompson]

You got me with this one - I was in the middle of saying "aaactually" when you jumped out and said something different lol

[Lberty]

You know what would be fabulous instead of government giving out our money that they took. Abolishing income tax and letting people keep the money they make or drastically lowering the amount taxed for people under 100k. 5% until 100k then the standard afterwards

[AdamKlownzinger]

UBI suffers from all the same inflation problems that a minimum wage, and particularly increasing it, does.

[ActuatedGear]

I like the part where somebody actually tried it and did the experiment.

It doesn't work: WE TRIED IT.

Very solid.

[immaleaf]

I'd like to see opposite experiment.
Instead of giving groups UBI, we reduce taxes for groups, if people in the groups with lower taxes feel uncomfortable that they're "giving" less to social programs, we can introduce ways these people can choose to pay into something called "charities."
I just think this would be a worthwhile experiment to see how people in the groups would feel when they could no longer "take" money from "others" to make themselves "feel better"

[mattgayda]

Did you know casinos revenue went up during COVID? Yep, and it was significantly higher because handing people free money they throw it away.

[SJ-conk]

The big problem with most UBI experiments is that they are nothing like what the reality of UBI will be.

UBI is

1. Permanent. It isnt for 6 months or a year, its a new government program that is likely to last forever.

2. Universal. Many UBI studies choose recipients specifically who are poor and reject recipients who are not. Happened to a friend of mine who was selected and then deselected for a UBI study when they found out he had a blue collar job.

3. Funded. UBI studies don't typically increase taxes for working people under the studies, but actual UBI would. If you take money from the aether and hand it to poor people then it's going to be good for the poor people and it's not going to be bad for anyone in particular. On the other hand, if you take money from working class people and hand it to poor people then those working class people will be net worse off, and thats material to the equation.

Now some people say "dont worry about it we'll save so much money on administration it'll pay for itself" and that demonstrates that you probably buy lottery tickets because you suck at math. Handing hundreds of millions of people a bunch of money will be the largest government expense period. Its like saying youll save money on a real.estate agent by just buying every house in the city -- you just cant make that back.

[dirtyblueshirt]

"The homeless" don't exist. There's Alice who needs help with her drug addiction, Bob who needs treatment for his schizophrenia, Clair who needs help with job interviews, Dave who just likes camping out...

[SangoProductions]

What would be more helpful is a job assistance program to help get people who need it in touch with companies who are actually hiring, rather than pretending to hire.

[Elsureel]

Wait, so when nothing is given, only 22% are homeless in a year, and when money is given 50-60% were still homeless?