Utrecht Considering Experiment With Universal Basic Income

[I1L2T3]

People WILL flock there for the free money. Just as people flock to the UK for the benefits here. You say it's the same as being on the dole, but with no conditions attached, AND if you get a job, you keep the money as well as your wages. So there's incentives there for both non-workers and workers to move there. I would bet everything I own that it won't work, that people will flock to Utrecht to get it, there won't be enough money to give everyone, and the whole scheme will collapse very quickly.

 

That's one of the interesting things about the experiment. The city will have a limited number of jobs, houses, school places etc...

 

If you have a job it makes the city a more attractive place to live. If you don't the chances of you actually wanting or even getting to move there are slim, and it wouldn't be an attractive place to live in on the basic income alone. My feeling is that it would be self-limiting. We shall see and there's every chance we'll both be right to a degree.

[tzijlstra]

I really don't understand this idea at all.

 

So what's to stop non-local Dutch people moving to Utrecht just for the money?

 

More people means fewer vacant places to live in, which means higher rents etc.

 

So who exactly benefits from this?

 

People WILL flock there for the free money. Just as people flock to the UK for the benefits here. You say it's the same as being on the dole, but with no conditions attached, AND if you get a job, you keep the money as well as your wages. So there's incentives there for both non-workers and workers to move there. I would bet everything I own that it won't work, that people will flock to Utrecht to get it, there won't be enough money to give everyone, and the whole scheme will collapse very quickly.

 

The Dutch, as many other nations in Europe, have a system that was introduced during Napoleon's reign of a citizen's register. It enables the government to keep track of who lives where, what children are born to whom, when they die etc.

 

Despite popular believe here it is actually a very convenient system, not just for the government, but in particular for the citizens. It will enable Utrecht to easily verify whether someone is eligible or not. The reason the city wants to experiment with this is because they feel that the current system is too bureaucratic and cumbersome, by trying basic income they want to find out if that fixes the overhead.

 

Also, people seem to be under the impression that everybody would get this. That is not the case, the proposed trial is limited to three subject-groups, all three are currently living on benefits/JSA and will be subject to a) a trial with a lower basic income and rewards for participation in society b) a flat basic income and c) no change.

 

If the trial is successful the council will presumably start looking at introducing a flat basic income for all those on benefits/JSA but not for all citizens of the city.

[dutch]

A good friend of ours is about to become a mother in Utrecht, could happen any moment now.

[perplexed]

I wish people would learn the very basic fact that there is no such thing as free money.

 

Somebody somewhere is paying for it.