One Canadian province is testing Silicon Valley’s favorite answer to how society should deal with job loss caused by automation: basic income.
Some background: Tech investors are funding pilot projects to find out what people do when they get money with no strings attached. Y Combinator ran a small-scale test in Oakland, California, last year.
A true test: A three-year basic income pilot will give about 4,000 people in Ontario a monthly stipend to boost their minimum annual income to about $17,000 Canadian dollars (about $13,000 US) for single people. As Brian Bergstein writes, the Canadians are testing it as an efficient antipoverty mechanism, but that’s not why Silicon Valley likes it. The dream from the tech set is for universal basic income to prevent mass worries over robots taking jobs.
The most obvious problem? Math. Many economists concluded long ago that it would be too expensive, especially when compared with the cost of programs to create new jobs and train people for them.
SOURCE: MIT DOWNLOAD
Some background: Tech investors are funding pilot projects to find out what people do when they get money with no strings attached. Y Combinator ran a small-scale test in Oakland, California, last year.
A true test: A three-year basic income pilot will give about 4,000 people in Ontario a monthly stipend to boost their minimum annual income to about $17,000 Canadian dollars (about $13,000 US) for single people. As Brian Bergstein writes, the Canadians are testing it as an efficient antipoverty mechanism, but that’s not why Silicon Valley likes it. The dream from the tech set is for universal basic income to prevent mass worries over robots taking jobs.
The most obvious problem? Math. Many economists concluded long ago that it would be too expensive, especially when compared with the cost of programs to create new jobs and train people for them.
SOURCE: MIT DOWNLOAD
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