The UBI folks were cursed by the pandemic and inflation. You cannot deal with that confounder.
They’re not the only ones. Remember Green New Deal? That also evaporated with the end of ZIRP.
You can complain relentlessly about these guys, or offer alternative solution with nothing but vibes to vouch for them. The truth is, as long as interest rates are high, the economic contraction is making everyone too scared to try anything in case things “get worse.” Sadly, the best time to make great social change was between 2009 and 2022 and it’s officially over now.
> The UBI folks were cursed by the pandemic and inflation. You cannot deal with that confounder.
The study had a control group, who also experienced pandemic & inflation.
You can do whatever you want during periods of inflation. "It" will fail. The existence of a control group is meaningless. The control group will have bad outcomes too. So what if it does? Nobody can design interventions for periods of inflation, because inflation makes everything look bad: your outcome, control group's outcomes, everyone's outcomes.
For example, Brazil created their current public health system in 1988, realizing it in 1990, during inflation that was between 1,000-2,000%. It wasn't really functional then. Looking at it in isolation, at the time it was created, it would look like a failure, but all of Brazil looked like "a failure." Would it be valid to use SUS as implemented during 1,000% inflation as an example of why public health insurance is bad? No way.
> Remember Green New Deal
This went along with the death of Modern Monetary Theory.