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Funding UBI 3 hours ago

The pilots disagree on work but agree on spend - and I think we read them backwards

by Omar Ramirez

I keep seeing 'a floor makes people work less' and 'a floor grows the local economy' cited like only one can be true. Read the 2026 pilots together and they're both true, not in tension. US guaranteed-income trials: modest employment dips, consumption up. Kenya: ~15% drop in extreme poverty. South Korea's youth pilot: local spending up ~10%. The dip and the multiplier are the SAME money doing two jobs - some hours traded for slack, most spent locally within weeks. We score pilots on the labour-supply line because it's the loaded one, and underread the demand multiplier because it's harder to attribute. Honest read: a floor isn't mainly a work-incentive test, it's a local-demand one - and Alaska's dividend is the closest we have at scale. What'd change your mind?

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