Top all-time · #3210
Scott Santens
Personal blog · scottsantens.comeconomicspolitics
Scott Santens writes UBI Guide, a personal blog at scottsantens.com about economics and politics. Since 2015, 23 different Hacker News readers have linked it 70 times, most often “Did Sam Altman's Basic Income Experiment Succeed or Fail?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-24, and you can follow it by feed.
The blog of Scott Santens - author and unconditional universal basic income specialist. Learn all about UBI from a continually-growing collection of angles.
Most-linked posts?
- /basic-income-faq2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-11-09
- Did Sam Altman's Basic Income Experiment Succeed or Fail?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-08-02
- The Angine de Poitrine Argument for UBI2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-04-28
- Top Basic Income Articles of 20162 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-12-31
- AI Will Rapidly Transform Labor, Exacerbating Inequality, Insecurity, Poverty2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-28
- Basic Income Observations Log: Entry One – The Importance of Security2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-01-25
- Did Spain's B-Mincome Experiment Prove Unconditional Basic Income Doesn't Work?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-03-29
- Why China Could Surprise World by Being the First Country to Adopt UBI2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-24
- /negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-09-05
What Hacker News says?
The U.S. needs to implement a Basic Income. http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq
Comment linking /basic-income-faq
on “Donald Trump Is Elected President”Submitted Billionaire-Fueled Lobbying Group Behind the State Bills to Ban UBI Experiments as a story · 115 points
HN discussionThe author of the expanse himself clarified that Basic is not UBI http://www.scottsantens.com/the-expanse-basic-support-basic-...
Comment linking /the-expanse-basic-support-basic-income
on “Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income”Submitted Basic income: the water room analogy as a story · 69 points
HN discussionThat isn't how the term is normally used. This is a good intro: https://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unc... And you can even see on wikipedia that: > Therefore, a family with $0 income would be entitled to receive $1500 in subsidy. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax
Comment linking /negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different
on “Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work”Submitted The Spaceballs Argument for Unconditional Basic Income as a story · 60 points
HN discussionAs the author of this article, I suggest reading this one next if your concern is inflation: https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-... If you have another question check here: http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq
Comment linking /basic-income-faq
on “Why we should all have a basic income”Submitted An Engineering Argument for Basic Income as a story · 47 points
HN discussionKrugman's point is not uncontested: http://www.scottsantens.com/our-paradoxical-economy-courtesy... Additionally, even if we're not peering around the metrics for dynamics hiding behind them, there's the question of how much of the by-Krugman's-metric still rising (if not "soaring") productivity it would take to soften the labor market. I'd like to think he knows the answer to that question, but it isn't clear.
Comment linking /our-paradoxical-economy-courtesy-of-technology-and-the-lack-of-basic-income
on “The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe”Submitted The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It as a story · 41 points
HN discussionA NIT and UBI can be designed to be equivalent: http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unco... A UBI of course has a lot of other benefits (being distributed monthly or more often, going to people who are unable to work, being universal and therefore more resistant politically).
Comment linking /negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different
on “Uber stops upfront ride pricing in response to California worker law”Submitted The Toothpaste Argument for Universal Basic Income as a story · 22 points
HN discussionNIT and UBI can be functionally identical, depending on the income tax curves. https://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unc...
Comment linking /negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different
on “Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being”Submitted Why China Could Surprise World by Being the First Country to Adopt UBI as a story · 18 points
HN discussion> With negative tax rate not so much since you would need to work in order to benefit This is not how NIT works. You can read this for an intro: https://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unc...
Comment linking /negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different
on “Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)”Submitted Basic Income Observations Log: Entry One – The Importance of Security as a story · 12 points
HN discussionIt is not easy, but it is something I believe we need to try as part of the solution to the problems facing our species on this planet. http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq
Comment linking /basic-income-faq
on “Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy”Submitted Universal Basic Income or Universal High Income? as a story · 10 points
HN discussionRead the Tryanny of Kindness. It is from 1993 and is a former welfare mother and advocate who advocates for a guaranteed income. The book goes into great length of the pathology of the welfare system and its non-profit charity profiteers. Of course that was 27 years ago. It obviously depends on the UBI. If it covered children, it would be absolutely better for the recipients. If it does not cover children, as in Yan…
Comment linking /tanf-is-terrible
on “The promising results of Stockton’s basic income experiment”Submitted Key Variables That Determine UBI's Inflationary Impact as a story · 9 points
HN discussionHere's a quick blog post with a link to more depth, on how UBI can be good for the economy. https://www.scottsantens.com/the-cost-of-universal-basic-inc... In computing terms, I like to think that monetary flows are how the market shares information. So having more people "in the game" will increase the fidelity of the information, opening new markets. For example, discount retail might be able to serve more special…
Comment linking /the-cost-of-universal-basic-income-is-the-net-transfer-amount-not-the-gross-price-tag
on “When Stockton gave people cash, they got jobs”Submitted Basic Income and Soylent as a story · 9 points
HN discussionYou missed the whole point of my post. NIT and UBI are not different models! When you take into account taxes from earnings, they are just different interpretations of the same model. Here it's explained a bit more: http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unco... That only considers a single tax bracket, but with a multiple brackets or a curve they can be made identical for everyone.
Comment linking /negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different
on “Universal Basic Income Is a Bad Idea”Submitted Why Universal Basic Income Is the Answer to Poverty, Insecurity, and Inequality as a story · 5 points
HN discussionHere's a good FAQ on Basic Income: http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq
Comment linking /basic-income-faq
on “Universal Basic Income Explained – Free Money for Everybody? [video]”Submitted UBI Does Not Require Tax Rates of 40 to 60 Percent as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThis article was originally posted in 2014, the author Scott Santens pretends to take an objective look at UBI, but in reality Scott is "Writer and advocate of basic income for all" according to his website http://www.scottsantens.com/
Comment linking /
on “What if you got $1,000 a month, just for being alive? (2014)”Submitted What People Get Most Wrong About Unconditional Basic Income as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThis is a silly piece that makes a false assumption after false assumption. It's just not the case that UBI creates excess inflation. It can, but in order to do so, it has to be designed in a particular way in a particular economic environment. This piece of mine gets into the variables to consider: https://www.scottsantens.com/17-key-variables-that-determine...
Comment linking /17-key-variables-that-determine-ubis-inflationary-impact/
on “Changing My Mind on UBI”Submitted Unconditional Basic Income Would Fix a Major Flaw in Markets as a story · 5 points
HN discussion
