Trip, it would be great if you would share the data. What I have seen about UBI pilots has demonstrated mixed results. I'm not aware of any job guarantee programs in the US but would love to learn about them if they do.
My thoughts don't come from Ayn Rand, but from spending most of my adult life living and working all over the world, mostly in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. I've seen all kinds of systems and all kinds of results.
Sticking to the developed world, Europe has a much larger safety net than the US, but also much higher unemployment. I studied abroad in The Netherlands in college and was amazed by how little they studied and how long they spent in school (8 years in undergrad was not abnormal). Of course everything was free plus they were getting $500 per month to do it. I'm not sure I would have been in a hurry to leave school either. I wouldn’t stop working for $1200 total, but if I got $1200 per person in my family of six, I would certainly quit my job and do something more enjoyable with my life. The devil is in the details.
Incentives matter. But so do knowledge and skills, something UBI doesn't address. Programs like BRAC's graduation make a lot more sense to me, and have demonstrated results: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-way-to-help-the-poor/
Of course, this is complicated, and getting a government to do it well on a large scale is doubtful. UBI is more interesting to me than a job guarantee because it is simple and, assuming not too much money (and better if it is temporary), shouldn’t have a huge impact on the supply of labor. But without job and life skills to compliment the income, I’m not sure it would actually lift many people out of poverty. Giving fish rather than teaching to fish sort of thing.
A job guarantee seems like it would compete with and crowd out the private sector as workers move away from low-paying service jobs towards better paying government guaranteed jobs that don’t add value (dig a hole and fill it up is a typical job role for government guaranteed jobs — I’ve literally seen people cutting grass with scissors). As small businesses close down due to the inability to hire workers, those workers and owners would gravitate towards the guaranteed jobs, further reducing the private sector and making more and more people dependent on financial support. I just don’t see that path as being beneficial to a society.
I don’t pretend to be an expert, these are just my thoughts based on experience and knowledge about development and poverty.
