My project has been to estimate how many US workers would drop out of the labor market or reduce their work hours if working age adults received a guaranteed Universal Basic Income (UBI) of about $1200 a month – similar to the gross monthly pay for a full-time minimum wage job. In the last post in this series, I looked at part-time workers and workers who had previously applied and been rejected for federal disability benefits. I guessed about half these individuals would stop working or reduce their hours if they could count on a UBI. That would be about 27 million individuals or 17.5% of current civilian employment in the US.
Besides rejected disability benefit applicants and part-time workers, who else might be tempted to reduce their hours or stop work altogether if they got a UBI? Perhaps low-skill, low-pay full-time workers. Perhaps workers with limited education who have mostly aged out of formal education or training programs and have just flung themselves at the mercy of employers but are doing poorly. For instance, men and women 25 and older who don't have a four-year college degree and are getting shitty wages, such as the following:
2.1 million men with no more than a high school diploma, who earn less than $11/hour
1.5 million men with some college or an associates degree, who earn less than $12/hour.
1.2 million women with no more than a high school diploma who earn less than $10/hour.
1.3 million women with some college or an associates degree who earn less than $11/hour.
So we have at least 6.1 million poorly paid full-time workers with limited earning potential. If they had a guaranteed UBI, I imagine some of these individuals would get off the treadmill and manage with the UBI, perhaps working part-time or taking on an occasional full-time gig. At the very least, poorly-paid workers with no education past high school and single moms with young children would be tempted to cut back their hours*. How many people are we talking about? I don't know.
These are important questions and there isn't much useful information out there. For one, I'd like to see lots of Pew-quality surveys asking people how their labor market participation might change should they receive a guaranteed UBI of different amounts. Control for education level, income, age, parental status, age of children, and occupation. Of course, surveys aren't enough but they are part of the essential data gathering. Absent decent surveys, I'll do my limited best to make an educated guess at how a UBI might affects how much people work.
Next: an indecent survey but suggestive nonetheless.
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* One Pew Survey found that most mothers of young children would be willing to forego full-time work if they thought they could afford it.
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