I wonder how many people would start businesses if we had UBI and free health care as a safety net.

This was a worry for me when leaving my full time job in 2022 to work on open source. Our OSS project was able to pay rent, but was concerned about healthcare costs for my partner and me (NY state has extended COBRA coverage, but it's extremely expensive). My co-founder lives in Australia, which has free basic health care, so he was up for leaving his job before I was.

Taking the risk was one of the best decisions I've made, but if I had a chronic health condition/higher healthcare costs, probably would not have been comfortable.

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vidarh 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I grew up in Norway, that while it doesn't have UBI does have a safety net that meant the notion of ever living in poverty was just entirely foreign to me growing up, and for me at least I think that made it easier to take the decision to leave university and start a company.

The risk of ending unemployed was just never scary.

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zeroonetwothree 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think it’s more likely that UBI discourages business creation than encourages it.

Though the studies seem to show roughly zero net effect so perhaps these cancel out.

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Aurornis 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Several of the UBI pilot studies included new venture creation (including solo self-employment, not just classic business creation) as part of their measurements. The last few I looked at had zero difference in new business creation between recipients and control group.

A lot of the UBI trials have actually had disappointing results. The arguments usually claim that it’s not a valid test because it wasn’t guaranteed for life, or the goalposts move to claim that UBI shouldn’t be about anything other than improving safety nets.

Unfortunately I think the UBI that many people imagine is a lot higher than any UBI that would be mathematically feasible. Any UBI system that provided even poverty level wages would require significant tax increases to pay for it, far beyond what you could collect from the stereotypical “just tax billionaires” ideal. Try multiplying the population of the US by poverty level annual income and you’ll see that the sum total is a huge number. In practice, anyone starting a business would probably end up paying more in taxes under a UBI scheme than they’d collect from the UBI payments.

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vidarh 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The "classical" UBI argument from a liberal point of view (classical liberal, not US liberal) has typically been that UBI would lower the complexity and by extension cost of welfare by removing the needs to means-test. In Europe, UBI was typically more likely to be pushed by (by our standards) centre-right parties.

For this reason, UBI traditionally was seen negatively by the left, who saw it as a means of removing necessary extra support and reduce redistribution.

Heck, Marx even ridiculed the lack of fairness of equal distribution far before UBI was a relevant concept, in Critique of the Gotha Program, when what became the German SPD argued for equal distribution (not in the form of UBI), seemingly without thinking through the consequences of their wording, and specifically argued that "To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal".

Parts of the mainstream left today has started embracing it, seemingly having forgotten why they used to oppose it.

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JoshTriplett 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Any UBI system that provided even poverty level wages would require significant tax increases to pay for it

Or cutting other things to pay for it, in addition to smaller tax increases. And the costs go down once it's bootstrapped long enough to obtain the long-term economic benefits that grow the economy (which will take a while to materialize).

Honestly, my biggest concern with it is that people will (rightfully) worry that it won't last more than 4-8 years because the subsequent administration will attack it with everything they have, and thus treat it as temporary.

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caseysoftware 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> And the costs go down once it's bootstrapped long enough to obtain the long-term economic benefits that grow the economy (which will take a while to materialize).

That's a major claim. Which places under UBI (or in one of the experiments) has that manifested?

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parineum 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> And the costs go down once it's bootstrapped long enough to obtain the long-term economic benefits that grow the economy (which will take a while to materialize).

This is hypothetical, isn't it?

	▲	vidarh 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Depends what you mean. We have a decent idea of the velocity of money of households at different income levels on the basis of how likely people are to spend all their money vs. holding on to them in ways that may or may not be as effective at stimulating economic activity. In that sense it is not particularly hypothetical. In terms of whether people will be more likely to e.g. start a business, that part is a lot more hypothetical. There have been some trials where there seems to have been some effect, but others where it's not clear. That effect seems very much hypothetical. But that was not part of the classical argument for UBI, and I don't think it's a good idea to use it as an argument for UBI.

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3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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parineum 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It takes a good idea and a willingness to take a risk to start a business. I don't think that risk aversion is what's stopping new businesses, there are a lot of people who do a lot of what I consider too risky.

Instead, what I wonder is how many new businesses wouldn't be viable under a tax structure that provides ubi and health care. Not to be dismissive but that's definitely a concern in a world replete with fledgling businesses that mostly fail.

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SoftTalker 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah this is sort of the reaction I had. Removing "risk" with UBI and free healthcare and free childcare also removes the filters for a lot of people who would be bad at running a business. If you don't have the stomach to take the risk and do the work to make your idea a success, then maybe you shouldn't try.

We don't need millions of more failed businesses as the result of giving everyone UBI.

	▲	watwut 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Why do you need people to make big risks livelihood to do business? People from affluent environment start businesses the most often and they dont really risk all that much. They know they will get help if it fails. In fact, successful businesses started by people who can return back to good jobs if it fails are completely normal thing.

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runako 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The data on UBI isn't out there, but it is notable that countries with similar tax rates to the US manage to have universal healthcare and more expansive safety nets. Some examples: New Zealand (tax rate ~30% less than the US), Korea, Switzerland, Australia, UK, Japan, Netherlands, Norway.

Americans really should be asking why we're paying a significantly higher tax burden than New Zealand and not getting similar services as part of the bargain.

Put another way: the US is incredibly rich compared to other countries. Our poorest states have higher GDP per capita than most rich countries. And our taxes are not particularly low. Our social issues are 100% about how we choose to allocate our shared resources. The good thing is we can always choose to make different choices.

	▲	bluecalm 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Switzerland has mandatory healthcare insurance and subsidies for low income earners. The insurance is provided by private companies. It's not really universal healthcare system like in most EU countries. Private insurance can work out fine if regulated well. In USA you have regulatory capture that makes services expensive. Impossible barriers to entry coupled with terrible regulation on price transparency and a lot of cartel like behavior.

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airstrike 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

UBI is both a pipe dream and unnecessary.

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tenpies 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

n = 1, but if we get UBI, I will immediately start a precious metals brokerage business.