The New York Times — a.k.a. The Nation's Foremost College Newspaper — is typically blinded by its Utopian vision and its quasi-religious obsession with economic redistribution.
The Miller et al. working paper (Does Income Affect Health) calls to mind the quote from Ronald Reagan "I believe the best social program is a job".
Decades ago the NYT had an article summarizing many Nobel Prizes in Economics with a well known proverb such as "Don't put all your eggs in one basket". I wasn't able to find it when I looked recently; if anyone knows the location I'd appreciate knowing.
It should be no surprise that giving people money with no conditions attached leads to less time spent working. That's how Social Security and pensions work. We get old, we get a pension, we stop working (we call it retirement). Why would we expect non-retirement age people to behave differently?
Econ 101 teaches us that if we reduce the marginal utility of working by giving out free money, we will get less work. People respond to incentives. We don't need more studies to tell us that.
An even more important effect of this type is on people already working or recently graduated from education. I'd expect that some would quit work or not start work in the first place if given a guaranteed income. Adding such control groups to experiments is crucial for a study to be believable, though the smarter research subjects would realize that the free money is just temporary and be less willing to sit idle for a few years because the gap in employment history will look bad once the study payments stop to future employers.
It raises questions about Sam Altman's thinking processes that such concerns are ignored.
The New York Times — a.k.a. The Nation's Foremost College Newspaper — is typically blinded by its Utopian vision and its quasi-religious obsession with economic redistribution.
The Miller et al. working paper (Does Income Affect Health) calls to mind the quote from Ronald Reagan "I believe the best social program is a job".
Decades ago the NYT had an article summarizing many Nobel Prizes in Economics with a well known proverb such as "Don't put all your eggs in one basket". I wasn't able to find it when I looked recently; if anyone knows the location I'd appreciate knowing.
It should be no surprise that giving people money with no conditions attached leads to less time spent working. That's how Social Security and pensions work. We get old, we get a pension, we stop working (we call it retirement). Why would we expect non-retirement age people to behave differently?
Econ 101 teaches us that if we reduce the marginal utility of working by giving out free money, we will get less work. People respond to incentives. We don't need more studies to tell us that.
An even more important effect of this type is on people already working or recently graduated from education. I'd expect that some would quit work or not start work in the first place if given a guaranteed income. Adding such control groups to experiments is crucial for a study to be believable, though the smarter research subjects would realize that the free money is just temporary and be less willing to sit idle for a few years because the gap in employment history will look bad once the study payments stop to future employers.
It raises questions about Sam Altman's thinking processes that such concerns are ignored.