Oh, this study was very useful, no matter how the guardian is trying to frame it. There was no clear indication that basic income encourages people to find jobs. You can scratch that one off the list.
Other than that, there's absolutely nothing surprising. You give people a money and they feel better. That's like... not exactly new information. And yeah, it will change their choices somewhat, which again is no big find.
There was a pretty big and important hypothesis that the study was trying to pin down: is UBI profitable? Do you give 500 EUR and get more back? The question is very reasonable and there was quite a bit of clamor for exactly this kind of pilot study to get details. Quite a few mechanisms could potentially get us there - for example people could focus on training for a better position. Or simply having more time to look for jobs they'd find better matches. And so on.
And the answer is: there is no trace of that.
Sure, we do need better studies, longer durations, higher amounts, more people. It's definitely something that's worth studying. But the gold standard so far, the linked study, found nothing in this direction. That's a big negative, and well worth noting - not hiding it into a bunch of "people feel better with more money" like this article is trying to do.
Other than that, there's absolutely nothing surprising. You give people a money and they feel better. That's like... not exactly new information. And yeah, it will change their choices somewhat, which again is no big find.
There was a pretty big and important hypothesis that the study was trying to pin down: is UBI profitable? Do you give 500 EUR and get more back? The question is very reasonable and there was quite a bit of clamor for exactly this kind of pilot study to get details. Quite a few mechanisms could potentially get us there - for example people could focus on training for a better position. Or simply having more time to look for jobs they'd find better matches. And so on.
And the answer is: there is no trace of that.
Sure, we do need better studies, longer durations, higher amounts, more people. It's definitely something that's worth studying. But the gold standard so far, the linked study, found nothing in this direction. That's a big negative, and well worth noting - not hiding it into a bunch of "people feel better with more money" like this article is trying to do.