My story goes something like this: people work because they need money. If they need money less, they will work less. I’ll have to see a lot of evidence to contradict this simple story. Andrew himself agreed that for most people who drop out of the labor force, UBI will not pull them back in.
I have always considered this a unilateral good of the proposal, for employers and consumers.
Employing people is hard, and people who just don’t show up or walk off halfway through the shift without saying a word is a perpetual problem, even after sorting through hundreds of resumes. If all the people who don’t want to work at all drop out, that means fewer resumes to sort through and probably also means higher quality applicants. It seems like an information advantage to businesses, which is a big deal as information is the hardest part about business.
From the consumer side, interacting with people who really don’t want to be there really sucks. I don’t like patronizing places that treat people poorly, and there is always the problem of the indifferent or negligent employee who screws up my order or damages my merchandise or whatever. I would prefer working with lower-stress, less-desperate people whenever possible.
Another way this might help employers: There’s a possibility that having a social safety net like this will reduce the incentive for a person who has found themself in a bullshit job to defend that bullshit job’s existence, which may lead to lower rates of bureaucratic parasitism?
I have always considered this a unilateral good of the proposal, for employers and consumers.
Employing people is hard, and people who just don’t show up or walk off halfway through the shift without saying a word is a perpetual problem, even after sorting through hundreds of resumes. If all the people who don’t want to work at all drop out, that means fewer resumes to sort through and probably also means higher quality applicants. It seems like an information advantage to businesses, which is a big deal as information is the hardest part about business.
From the consumer side, interacting with people who really don’t want to be there really sucks. I don’t like patronizing places that treat people poorly, and there is always the problem of the indifferent or negligent employee who screws up my order or damages my merchandise or whatever. I would prefer working with lower-stress, less-desperate people whenever possible.
Another way this might help employers: There’s a possibility that having a social safety net like this will reduce the incentive for a person who has found themself in a bullshit job to defend that bullshit job’s existence, which may lead to lower rates of bureaucratic parasitism?