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Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income

106 points by ph0rque 11y ago

api 11y ago
I've been in favor of this for a long time, but I do have a more nuanced opinion in that I'm not sure if it's "time" yet. IMHO we're getting there, and when the (very likely) big wave of automation hits it will be time. The true automation wave has not happened yet, and when it hits it will make the outsourcing wave look like a minor disruption to the employment market. I fully expect that by the year 2100 most non-skilled labor will be obsolete. -- Edit: There's one more "elephant in the living room" that I'd like to bring up in this thread before I'm outta here. I'll leave it here at the root since it's part of the core point I was making. Few bring up this fact since it leads to areas that many consider non-PC or impolite to discuss. The average IQ is 100, and intelligence and other abilities are normally distributed within the population. This is pretty much fixed on short-term human timescales unless we can widely deploy genetic engineering and brain-augmentation. Not only are these things massively hard -- probably harder than any of the crazy automation anyone is predicting -- but they're also going to face intense opposition on both religious and secular-ideological grounds. If you think the furor over GMO foods is excessive and irrational, imagine the furor over GMO humans. It's also likely that those with the strongest opposition to genetic enhancement (on largely superstitious grounds) would be precisely those for whom it would be most beneficial. Conversely, those most enthusiastic to adopt it would be those who don't need it. As a result it would probably accelerate the trend I'm discussing here. This means that if automation and other factors are constantly conspiring to increase the median skill level requirements of labor, eventually significant portions of humanity are simply going to fall off a cliff where the economic value of their labor becomes zero. From a purely economic point of view these are now worthless human beings. It doesn't matter if labor supply exceeds demand if the labor available to fill that demand can't do the work. As automation gets better, this cliff will move up the bell curve. As it does, then due to the shape of a bell curve the number of people thus affected will increase exponentially. This is a recipe for blood in the streets -- and for totalitarianism as a response. So we have a choice. Option #1: consign those who fall off the edge to poverty and wall them off in ghettoes, and implement a totalitarian political regime with total surveillance of the entire population to deal with the perpetual undercurrent of crime and terrorism that this will create. The result basically looks like a B-grade cyberpunk film. Option #2: admit to ourselves that we are entering a post-capitalist early-post-scarcity phase of development and implement some level of basic income. I'd go with option #2. Not only is it better for humanity at large, it's also better for me as I don't fancy living world #1 even if I did get to live in one of the posh totalitarian enclaves.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  As interesting as it would be to have this in the near future, I'd agree with you. We would need a semi-permanent 16%+ U6 unemployment before its likely tho. As long as ~90% of the people who want full time jobs can find full time jobs, there simply isn't going to be enough momentum for it. When automation cuts out the bottom 10% or so of the employment market is when it'd happen.
  - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
    I'd like to mention that disability rates are another good measure for what you're looking for, since things like "local lumber mill closes, former employees aren't educated enough to get a job afterwards" cause people to go on disability benefits.
- harryh 11y ago
  If you look at what most people were doing in 1930 most of those jobs are obsolete. And yet most people are still working. I'd be pretty surprised if 2015-2100 turns out to be much different from 1930 - 2015.
  - afterburner 11y ago
    This ain't your grand-daddy's automation.
  - astrocat 11y ago
    What I think what most people count on is the inanely fast ACCELERATION of technological progress. The amount of advancement between 1930 and 2015 will be orders of magnitude less than 2015-2100.
    - ekr 11y ago
      Why do you say that? I think the technological progress will continue to grow exponentially. There are more researchers now than at any point in human history. The economic incentives are still at least as big (relatively speaking). At the moment there are many industries with great potential for applying machine learning and various other automation techniques. And considering that many leading AI scientists are expecting smarter-than-human AI within this century (or the start of the next one), I certainly fail to see your point. Anyway, there is still a lot of room for exponential growth of human knowledge, in a lot of fields.
Frondo 11y ago
When people on the far left and the far right agree, they're usually onto something. My favorite examples are the NSA spying stuff, and this. Lefties hate the NSA spying and love a universal basic income because the spying tilts the power away from the people, and the income tilts toward the people. Righties (well, go far right enough) hate the NSA spying and love a universal income because of government overreach in the first case, and the ability to drastically simplify government welfare--cutting out a ton of means-tested programs and their agencies, and replacing it all with a check each month. Gotta love it!
- notahacker 11y ago
  If the far left and the far right were forced to agree on the level of BI or accept the status quo I think we'd be back to the status quo though...
- commandar 11y ago
  >and the ability to drastically simplify government welfare--cutting out a ton of means-tested programs and their agencies, and replacing it all with a check each month. As someone that leans left, this is one of the big arguments I make in favor of UBI. Frankly, I'm tired of arguing over the minutia of welfare, unemployment benefits, the minimum wage, social security, etc. Fine. Scrap most of our social assistance programs outside of healthcare and replace them with a UBI. The progressive in me likes it because it gives everyone a minimum safety net and the capitalist in me likes it because it opens up entrepreneurism and the ability to pursue potentially innovative businesses -- especially in an economy increasingly geared toward service and information work -- to huge portions of the population that are otherwise locked out. Active, small businesses are good for everyone.
  - Nevermark 11y ago
    I agree. Markets and businesses are changing so fast that most people are going to have periods of tough career change in their lives. Allowing people to make those important transitions without completely losing financial stability will help everyone.
  - 11y ago
harryh 11y ago
A challenge to anyone who thinks we should have a UBI: do the math. Show how it can work given the current population and output of the United States. It's not easy.
- zajd 11y ago
  Tax the rich
  - harryh 11y ago
    Three words is not doing the math. Show your work!
    - afterburner 11y ago
      Hey man, do your own homework.
      - drcode 11y ago
        He already did, he couldn't find any way to make the numbers work and is challenging you to find a solution.
        afterburner 11y ago
        There was no such analysis in what I responded to, nor anywhere else by him when I typed it. (Not sure there is even now.) Am I supposed to read his mind?
      - harryh 11y ago
        OK: ~225M Americans 20+ years of age * $12,000 = ~2.7T. As a point of reference that's around 15-16% of GDP. It's also about 90% of current US gov't income or 80% of US gov't expenditures. In other words it's really fucking expensive! I'm not saying the math is impossible but the conspicuous absence of details from most people saying it's a good idea is pretty telling.
nwah1 11y ago
The Basic Income doesn't address the systemic issues which we usually lump under the category of "inflation," although by that what we're really talking about is power and privilege. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20120327 http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20120327
MichaelApproved 11y ago
Off topic but I like how that website shows a new article, as you scroll down the page. Even the URL changes to the appropriate link, so it's easy to share. Pretty cool. Does anyone know what the term for that technology is? I'm referring to a term that's similar to how "responsive HTML" is a term for a website that changes based on view port.
- c5karl 11y ago
  "infinite scroll"
  - MichaelApproved 11y ago
    I figured infinite scroll was more a term for twitter and Facebook news feeds, where the content is the same but you're seeing more of it. In those examples, the URL stays the same. I guess it would be "infinite scroll of articles where the URL reflects the content" but that still seems like a mouth full. There should be a better term for that.
    - chucksmash 11y ago
      Infinite scroll with stateful routing?
raspasov 11y ago
This is one of my favorite ideas. It sounds great in theory, and I'd love for it to be tried somewhere. Just as a note, I'm pretty libertarian leaning, but that idea is, I think, the best compromise between pure libertarianism and the bureaucracy mess we currently have in the world.
- sremani 11y ago
  Its been tried in Oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia, but given the massive growth in population and mostly relying on immigrant workers for long time, they are now trying to balance things and once you take away some welfare from people they do get angry and so, the royalty of Saudi Arabia are facing many challenges.
- commandar 11y ago
  The Dutch are currently running active experiments with UBI in a few cities. They've only launched in the last few months, though, so it's too soon to say what the long-term impact will be.
- akvadrako 11y ago
  It's been done in Canada and it was a big success: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME
xrange 11y ago
I'd like to see a an article about the potential downsides of Basic Income, written by advocates of Basic Income. Is it all "there are no downsides", "there are only minor downsides for the ultra-rich", "there are no possible implementation issues", etc.. Or has someone written a thoughtful article on what might go wrong?
- sremani 11y ago
  Inflation? what is the incentive for someone to work? How basic is basic and who determines what basic is? If any one observed Venezuela or for that matter Saudi Arabia with their social welfare paid off by Oil wealth, you would be skeptical of these social programs.
ihsw 11y ago
Contrasted with China's shifting to population growth from economic growth, this is definitely going to resonate with Western leaders. Honestly though, if we are go with UBI, can we ask ourselves what is really necessary in life? Currently large sections of the population engage in secondary and post-secondary education for the purpose of gainful employment -- to have a job brings social and financial stability. That will no longer be necessary, so what does that means? Will tuition rates go down? Will universities no longer be in such demand globally? How will this affect population growth and movement? Large sections of the population across the world utilize visas whose conditions are tied to education or employment, and now they will not have such opportunities.
eternalban 11y ago
counting his sheep in his sleep, no doubt. Can't wait until humanity graduates from the clutches of these usurers.
cfontes 11y ago
Well this will not work until 90% of the jobs are automated and we actually don't need this many people to work anymore to produce all the wealth and food needed or in demand. And this will take a long while.
- jokoon 11y ago
  I think it's already the case, the 90% you're talking about is debatable, we already live in an age where producing food and shelter requires so few people that you can consider those jobs are already automated in some way. The result is that only the educated and the owners can work and be included in the economy, and unless higher education can include everyone, well you will always have uneducated people who will have no other opportunity jobs than fast food and cleaning houses, which is a problem, in my opinion, for a nation. The UBI is just a minimum people will get no matter what, so if they get a job it's an added income. Depending on its amount, it's a compromise between inflation and stimulating the economy without having parts of the US not develop. Consumer spending always has been the basis of a healthy capitalism, and the UBI follows that logic.
pdq 11y ago
> It's becoming clear that increased automation as well as the rise of artificial intelligence is threatening ever more jobs. This sentence is absolute FUD. Every technical revolution over the past 300 years has been made with automation and productivity, and yet people are still employed in new jobs in sectors that did not exist before. Employing people to do menial obsolete jobs serves no purpose other than to delay the next evolution of ideas and products. With this thinking we would still be handwriting books and riding horses. In the future when driverless cars are prominent, people will ask in astonishment "So you used to DRIVE your own car to work?"
- pcurve 11y ago
  I think the economist is concerned about both pace and kind of disruption taking place. I tend to agree with you all jobs lost due automation have been replaced with other types of jobs. Usually bullshit service sector jobs to cite a common example. Mind you we already have some forms of universal basic income. Social security... child credit... all conditional but nevertheless are tax transfer
cantastoria 11y ago
I'm curious what HN readers think the yearly UBI would be (in US dollars) if it were actually implemented?
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  I'd guess about $10400, paid at $200 per week to the head of a household, plus an additional $75 per full dependent. That works out as follows: Household Size | Annual UBI | 2014 Poverty ---------------+------------+------------- 1 | $10,400 | $11,670 2 | $14,300 | $15,730 3 | $18,200 | $19,790 4 | $22,100 | $23,850 5 | $26,000 | $27,910 6 | $29,900 | $31,970 7 | $33,800 | $36,030 8 | $37,700 | $40,090 That's a compromise. The UBI is less than poverty level, so that the conservatives can say that no one is getting a free ride, and people will still need to work to get by. But it's still around 90% of poverty line, so that the liberals can say that the government is still providing a great safety net. There are 123M households in the US, for a population of 319M, so the total cost would be $200 * 123M + $75 * ( 319M - 123M ) per week, which is $39.3G, or $2.1 trillion per year. The U.S. had official income of $3 trillion in 2014, so UBI would cost about 68% of the federal budget.
- civilian 11y ago
  Like $3000 a month? Not enough to live in a major city, but you should be comfortable living somewhere in the US. Major city livin' is in short supply and is thus a luxury--- we'll never be able to have a high enough UBI for us all to live in NYC.
jqm 11y ago
When you know something isn't going to happen it's ok to suggest it. This is particularly useful if later it can be used as example of how your company is not actually an abusive parasitic organization but really cares about meeting people's basic needs.
tajano 11y ago
It feels like everything is getting priced exactly at the point where it feels like I'm barely scraping by. I make a low six figure income and live in a one bedroom apartment. I don't drive a luxury car, or take vacations, or have many indulgences except eating out one or two nights a week. I also don't have much money left over to save or invest. I don't see home ownership in my future, or much improvement in my standard of living. I'm getting older, but the idea of paying for a wedding, or the cost of raising a child, or the cost of sending them to college scares the hell out of me. This is probably due, mostly, to living in an area with a high cost of living. There are perks to living in a nice city -- my girlfriend shudders at the thought of moving to the suburbs -- but the city bleeds us dry. It's exciting to live in a technology hub, but the higher salary seems to be mostly an illusion. My point being, I wonder how quickly everything will adjust to swallow up that basic income? Then again, I guess it's not really aimed at present-day me, but rather at someone with a lower income for whom its utility will be much greater.

106 points by ph0rque 11y ago

api 11y ago

I've been in favor of this for a long time, but I do have a more nuanced opinion in that I'm not sure if it's "time" yet. IMHO we're getting there, and when the (very likely) big wave of automation hits it will be time. The true automation wave has not happened yet, and when it hits it will make the outsourcing wave look like a minor disruption to the employment market. I fully expect that by the year 2100 most non-skilled labor will be obsolete. -- Edit: There's one more "elephant in the living room" that I'd like to bring up in this thread before I'm outta here. I'll leave it here at the root since it's part of the core point I was making. Few bring up this fact since it leads to areas that many consider non-PC or impolite to discuss. The average IQ is 100, and intelligence and other abilities are normally distributed within the population. This is pretty much fixed on short-term human timescales unless we can widely deploy genetic engineering and brain-augmentation. Not only are these things massively hard -- probably harder than any of the crazy automation anyone is predicting -- but they're also going to face intense opposition on both religious and secular-ideological grounds. If you think the furor over GMO foods is excessive and irrational, imagine the furor over GMO humans. It's also likely that those with the strongest opposition to genetic enhancement (on largely superstitious grounds) would be precisely those for whom it would be most beneficial. Conversely, those most enthusiastic to adopt it would be those who don't need it. As a result it would probably accelerate the trend I'm discussing here. This means that if automation and other factors are constantly conspiring to increase the median skill level requirements of labor, eventually significant portions of humanity are simply going to fall off a cliff where the economic value of their labor becomes zero. From a purely economic point of view these are now worthless human beings. It doesn't matter if labor supply exceeds demand if the labor available to fill that demand can't do the work. As automation gets better, this cliff will move up the bell curve. As it does, then due to the shape of a bell curve the number of people thus affected will increase exponentially. This is a recipe for blood in the streets -- and for totalitarianism as a response. So we have a choice. Option #1: consign those who fall off the edge to poverty and wall them off in ghettoes, and implement a totalitarian political regime with total surveillance of the entire population to deal with the perpetual undercurrent of crime and terrorism that this will create. The result basically looks like a B-grade cyberpunk film. Option #2: admit to ourselves that we are entering a post-capitalist early-post-scarcity phase of development and implement some level of basic income. I'd go with option #2. Not only is it better for humanity at large, it's also better for me as I don't fancy living world #1 even if I did get to live in one of the posh totalitarian enclaves.

fweespeech 11y ago
As interesting as it would be to have this in the near future, I'd agree with you. We would need a semi-permanent 16%+ U6 unemployment before its likely tho. As long as ~90% of the people who want full time jobs can find full time jobs, there simply isn't going to be enough momentum for it. When automation cuts out the bottom 10% or so of the employment market is when it'd happen.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  I'd like to mention that disability rates are another good measure for what you're looking for, since things like "local lumber mill closes, former employees aren't educated enough to get a job afterwards" cause people to go on disability benefits.
harryh 11y ago
If you look at what most people were doing in 1930 most of those jobs are obsolete. And yet most people are still working. I'd be pretty surprised if 2015-2100 turns out to be much different from 1930 - 2015.
- afterburner 11y ago
  This ain't your grand-daddy's automation.
- astrocat 11y ago
  What I think what most people count on is the inanely fast ACCELERATION of technological progress. The amount of advancement between 1930 and 2015 will be orders of magnitude less than 2015-2100.
  - ekr 11y ago
    Why do you say that? I think the technological progress will continue to grow exponentially. There are more researchers now than at any point in human history. The economic incentives are still at least as big (relatively speaking). At the moment there are many industries with great potential for applying machine learning and various other automation techniques. And considering that many leading AI scientists are expecting smarter-than-human AI within this century (or the start of the next one), I certainly fail to see your point. Anyway, there is still a lot of room for exponential growth of human knowledge, in a lot of fields.

Frondo 11y ago

When people on the far left and the far right agree, they're usually onto something. My favorite examples are the NSA spying stuff, and this. Lefties hate the NSA spying and love a universal basic income because the spying tilts the power away from the people, and the income tilts toward the people. Righties (well, go far right enough) hate the NSA spying and love a universal income because of government overreach in the first case, and the ability to drastically simplify government welfare--cutting out a ton of means-tested programs and their agencies, and replacing it all with a check each month. Gotta love it!

notahacker 11y ago
If the far left and the far right were forced to agree on the level of BI or accept the status quo I think we'd be back to the status quo though...
commandar 11y ago
>and the ability to drastically simplify government welfare--cutting out a ton of means-tested programs and their agencies, and replacing it all with a check each month. As someone that leans left, this is one of the big arguments I make in favor of UBI. Frankly, I'm tired of arguing over the minutia of welfare, unemployment benefits, the minimum wage, social security, etc. Fine. Scrap most of our social assistance programs outside of healthcare and replace them with a UBI. The progressive in me likes it because it gives everyone a minimum safety net and the capitalist in me likes it because it opens up entrepreneurism and the ability to pursue potentially innovative businesses -- especially in an economy increasingly geared toward service and information work -- to huge portions of the population that are otherwise locked out. Active, small businesses are good for everyone.
- Nevermark 11y ago
  I agree. Markets and businesses are changing so fast that most people are going to have periods of tough career change in their lives. Allowing people to make those important transitions without completely losing financial stability will help everyone.
- 11y ago

harryh 11y ago

A challenge to anyone who thinks we should have a UBI: do the math. Show how it can work given the current population and output of the United States. It's not easy.

zajd 11y ago
Tax the rich
- harryh 11y ago
  Three words is not doing the math. Show your work!
  - afterburner 11y ago
    Hey man, do your own homework.
    - drcode 11y ago
      He already did, he couldn't find any way to make the numbers work and is challenging you to find a solution.
      - afterburner 11y ago
        There was no such analysis in what I responded to, nor anywhere else by him when I typed it. (Not sure there is even now.) Am I supposed to read his mind?
    - harryh 11y ago
      OK: ~225M Americans 20+ years of age * $12,000 = ~2.7T. As a point of reference that's around 15-16% of GDP. It's also about 90% of current US gov't income or 80% of US gov't expenditures. In other words it's really fucking expensive! I'm not saying the math is impossible but the conspicuous absence of details from most people saying it's a good idea is pretty telling.

nwah1 11y ago

The Basic Income doesn't address the systemic issues which we usually lump under the category of "inflation," although by that what we're really talking about is power and privilege. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20120327 http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20120327

MichaelApproved 11y ago

Off topic but I like how that website shows a new article, as you scroll down the page. Even the URL changes to the appropriate link, so it's easy to share. Pretty cool. Does anyone know what the term for that technology is? I'm referring to a term that's similar to how "responsive HTML" is a term for a website that changes based on view port.

c5karl 11y ago
"infinite scroll"
- MichaelApproved 11y ago
  I figured infinite scroll was more a term for twitter and Facebook news feeds, where the content is the same but you're seeing more of it. In those examples, the URL stays the same. I guess it would be "infinite scroll of articles where the URL reflects the content" but that still seems like a mouth full. There should be a better term for that.
  - chucksmash 11y ago
    Infinite scroll with stateful routing?

raspasov 11y ago

This is one of my favorite ideas. It sounds great in theory, and I'd love for it to be tried somewhere. Just as a note, I'm pretty libertarian leaning, but that idea is, I think, the best compromise between pure libertarianism and the bureaucracy mess we currently have in the world.

sremani 11y ago
Its been tried in Oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia, but given the massive growth in population and mostly relying on immigrant workers for long time, they are now trying to balance things and once you take away some welfare from people they do get angry and so, the royalty of Saudi Arabia are facing many challenges.
commandar 11y ago
The Dutch are currently running active experiments with UBI in a few cities. They've only launched in the last few months, though, so it's too soon to say what the long-term impact will be.
akvadrako 11y ago
It's been done in Canada and it was a big success: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME

xrange 11y ago

I'd like to see a an article about the potential downsides of Basic Income, written by advocates of Basic Income. Is it all "there are no downsides", "there are only minor downsides for the ultra-rich", "there are no possible implementation issues", etc.. Or has someone written a thoughtful article on what might go wrong?

sremani 11y ago
Inflation? what is the incentive for someone to work? How basic is basic and who determines what basic is? If any one observed Venezuela or for that matter Saudi Arabia with their social welfare paid off by Oil wealth, you would be skeptical of these social programs.

ihsw 11y ago

Contrasted with China's shifting to population growth from economic growth, this is definitely going to resonate with Western leaders. Honestly though, if we are go with UBI, can we ask ourselves what is really necessary in life? Currently large sections of the population engage in secondary and post-secondary education for the purpose of gainful employment -- to have a job brings social and financial stability. That will no longer be necessary, so what does that means? Will tuition rates go down? Will universities no longer be in such demand globally? How will this affect population growth and movement? Large sections of the population across the world utilize visas whose conditions are tied to education or employment, and now they will not have such opportunities.

eternalban 11y ago

counting his sheep in his sleep, no doubt. Can't wait until humanity graduates from the clutches of these usurers.

cfontes 11y ago

Well this will not work until 90% of the jobs are automated and we actually don't need this many people to work anymore to produce all the wealth and food needed or in demand. And this will take a long while.

jokoon 11y ago
I think it's already the case, the 90% you're talking about is debatable, we already live in an age where producing food and shelter requires so few people that you can consider those jobs are already automated in some way. The result is that only the educated and the owners can work and be included in the economy, and unless higher education can include everyone, well you will always have uneducated people who will have no other opportunity jobs than fast food and cleaning houses, which is a problem, in my opinion, for a nation. The UBI is just a minimum people will get no matter what, so if they get a job it's an added income. Depending on its amount, it's a compromise between inflation and stimulating the economy without having parts of the US not develop. Consumer spending always has been the basis of a healthy capitalism, and the UBI follows that logic.

pdq 11y ago

> It's becoming clear that increased automation as well as the rise of artificial intelligence is threatening ever more jobs. This sentence is absolute FUD. Every technical revolution over the past 300 years has been made with automation and productivity, and yet people are still employed in new jobs in sectors that did not exist before. Employing people to do menial obsolete jobs serves no purpose other than to delay the next evolution of ideas and products. With this thinking we would still be handwriting books and riding horses. In the future when driverless cars are prominent, people will ask in astonishment "So you used to DRIVE your own car to work?"

pcurve 11y ago
I think the economist is concerned about both pace and kind of disruption taking place. I tend to agree with you all jobs lost due automation have been replaced with other types of jobs. Usually bullshit service sector jobs to cite a common example. Mind you we already have some forms of universal basic income. Social security... child credit... all conditional but nevertheless are tax transfer

cantastoria 11y ago

I'm curious what HN readers think the yearly UBI would be (in US dollars) if it were actually implemented?

logfromblammo 11y ago
I'd guess about $10400, paid at $200 per week to the head of a household, plus an additional $75 per full dependent. That works out as follows: Household Size | Annual UBI | 2014 Poverty ---------------+------------+------------- 1 | $10,400 | $11,670 2 | $14,300 | $15,730 3 | $18,200 | $19,790 4 | $22,100 | $23,850 5 | $26,000 | $27,910 6 | $29,900 | $31,970 7 | $33,800 | $36,030 8 | $37,700 | $40,090 That's a compromise. The UBI is less than poverty level, so that the conservatives can say that no one is getting a free ride, and people will still need to work to get by. But it's still around 90% of poverty line, so that the liberals can say that the government is still providing a great safety net. There are 123M households in the US, for a population of 319M, so the total cost would be $200 * 123M + $75 * ( 319M - 123M ) per week, which is $39.3G, or $2.1 trillion per year. The U.S. had official income of $3 trillion in 2014, so UBI would cost about 68% of the federal budget.
civilian 11y ago
Like $3000 a month? Not enough to live in a major city, but you should be comfortable living somewhere in the US. Major city livin' is in short supply and is thus a luxury--- we'll never be able to have a high enough UBI for us all to live in NYC.

jqm 11y ago

When you know something isn't going to happen it's ok to suggest it. This is particularly useful if later it can be used as example of how your company is not actually an abusive parasitic organization but really cares about meeting people's basic needs.

tajano 11y ago

It feels like everything is getting priced exactly at the point where it feels like I'm barely scraping by. I make a low six figure income and live in a one bedroom apartment. I don't drive a luxury car, or take vacations, or have many indulgences except eating out one or two nights a week. I also don't have much money left over to save or invest. I don't see home ownership in my future, or much improvement in my standard of living. I'm getting older, but the idea of paying for a wedding, or the cost of raising a child, or the cost of sending them to college scares the hell out of me. This is probably due, mostly, to living in an area with a high cost of living. There are perks to living in a nice city -- my girlfriend shudders at the thought of moving to the suburbs -- but the city bleeds us dry. It's exciting to live in a technology hub, but the higher salary seems to be mostly an illusion. My point being, I wonder how quickly everything will adjust to swallow up that basic income? Then again, I guess it's not really aimed at present-day me, but rather at someone with a lower income for whom its utility will be much greater.