they were talking about this before.

apparently, studies done in the past suggest that the ubi doesn't provide a disincentive towards working. i'd guess this is probably due to social coercion.

i would personally not be subject to such coercion. but, i'm unemployable, anyways - and i think that's the more key point. it's going to be a hard sell to certain groups, but if you want to do this experiment, you have to separate out the noise. i mean, call me a loser if you want. or call me an artist with an unmarketable product. that's not so important, in context; what's more important is that nobody is going to hire me any time soon, anyways, so the ubi isn't keeping me out of the work force.

the point is that you have to scratch people like me off the list. let's hope they actually do it, so i'm not skewing the results. for me, the whole thing really reduces to not needing to go through the hassle of getting my odsp renewed again - and also to a bit of a boost in income. how much?

to ease the pain on the calvinists, which are the real opposition here (even when they don't realize they're calvinists...), i want to draw attention to the numbers they're floating around. i'm on the ontario disability support, which is $1128/month - and i fully acknowledge that this feels like it's generous in the part of the province i live in (although, the caveat is that i moved across the province to allow for it). i have plenty of spending money, as those that follow me can see clearly. that works out to $13,536/year. this is before tax credits, but i'm going to assume that they will remain (because nobody has suggested otherwise). i wouldn't push back on swapping the trillium out for a ubi, though.

the article puts the number of $16,989 down, which is $1415.75/month. so, i would get a boost in benefits of $287.75/month - substantial, to say the least. that's a 26% boost, and i'm not even paying union dues. if i was moving from welfare to the ubi it would be more like a 215% boost in income. and, if i renewed my disability, i may be potentially eligible for another $500/month, making the total increase close to 70%.

but, calvinists should calm down.

at $16,989/year, that would be equivalent to about $8.17/hour, if the person worked 40 hours a week. the minimum wage is about $11.50, and living wage advocates in toronto are pushing for something closer to $20. so, there remain plenty of incentives to work, depending on where you live. in toronto or ottawa, this would merely make the desperately poor a little less desperate. here in windsor, it may be harder to make that argument, but the economy is terrible, anyways. if i stay on disability and this goes through, i could conceivably buy property here with $23,000/year. that's less than i made at microsoft, but pretty close to what i made working tech support for hp - in ottawa, in 2006. it's almost minimum wage, now.

so, the numbers seem to be crunched for toronto and that may be some insular thinking. this is unsustainable if you don't adjust for living costs, locally. if you try and find some middle point, i'll get twice what i need and somebody in a wheelchair in toronto will get half what she needs. it's a big province, with big disparities. and, this is arguably at the root of the cause in the first place - they aren't doing this, and it's what they need to do.

but, it's good to see some work moving in this direction.

https://news.ontario.ca/mcss/en/2017/04/ontarios-basic-income-pilot.html