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The title is wrong. It should be "we talked to 4 pro-UBI Facebook group admins, and 1 expert" TL;DR Associate professors of philosophy who manage Facebook grou

The title is wrong. It should be "we talked to 4 pro-UBI Facebook group admins, and 1 expert" TL;DR Associate professors of philosophy who manage Facebook groups promoting UBI like the concept and think it's feasible in a number of ways. The only economist (and only full professor) interviewed says: "UBI gets all this attention and popularity, but I haven’t seen one model that’s even on the planet of financial feasibility."

tristanburnside 11y ago
Except that his reasoning seems flawed. He says that expanding the Finland trial would require "taxing citizens double what you’re taxing them now". Finland has about 5.5 million in population (this counts children) So 800 * 12 * 5.5mil = 52.8 Billion euro Finland GDP is about 290 Billion euro and their tax take as a % GDP is 20-25%. That's at least 58 Billion euro. So while it would take a lot of work to find the money, it seems that this statement is not really true either.
- mc32 11y ago
  So what's the budget left for infrastructure, defense, R&D, education, disasters, emergencies?
- ntumlin 11y ago
  20% * 300 billion = 60 billion is where they're at now, add on 58 billion to pay for basic income and you've doubled taxes.
  - spangry 11y ago
    I'm guessing the number would be a fair bit lower when you subtract the savings from abolishing the existing unemployment welfare system (and the cost of administering it). And, in theory, those previously on 'tapering welfare' now face less of a disincentive to work, so there'd be a bump in pretty much any tax revenue base correlated with GDP (i.e. almost all of them). EDIT: Just to give you a sense of what I mean about EMTRs, here's a chart from Australia's most recent tax system review -> http://i.imgur.com/jhRYXiB.png?1 http://i.imgur.com/jhRYXiB.png?1 . The interaction of the tax and welfare system means low income earners face an effective marginal tax rate of almost 80% at certain points of the income range (mostly due to payment tapering).
qrendel 11y ago
People seem to forget just how much is currently spent on a lot of extremely... debatable programs. These are approximate numbers off the top of my head, but: US military spending = $1.5 trillion per year (~$700 billion for the DoD, the rest from other military and NatSec programs) US per capita healthcare spending = $8,600/person/year (edit: corrected by caseysoftware below, that includes private and public spending) Social Security = another ~24% of the federal budget Interest on the national debt = 7% of the US budget Again, rough numbers off the top of my head, but you could get a decent basic income going across the entire US just by switching to an affordable healthcare system and cutting the military budget to something on par with what the rest of the world spends. UBI would also replace and simplify a lot of the existing welfare and social security system, so that portion wouldn't even be additional spending compared to what's already happening. The obstacles seem more political and cultural than fiscal and economic. To a large extent it's basically wanting to replace the current corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex, healthcare, college bubble, etc. systems with something that would (arguably) benefit society far more.
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  Don't guess when the actual 2015 budget is a single search away: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... Your $1.5T number for military isn't backed up by facts as the entire discretionary spending for all agencies is only $1.1T US per capita healthcare spending - do you mean Medicare and Medicaid? I'm not sure how you came up with this number because $8.6k * 320M people = $2.75T which would be about 66% of the federal budget. Social Security itself is closer to 33% of the federal budget, not the 24% you cite.
  - qrendel 11y ago
    Wikipedia gives 24% for both healthcare and social security for 2014.[1] Total military spending is more complicated but is estimated at 28-38% of the total budget (though no citation).[2] That gives somewhere between 0.98 and 1.33 trillion, so I guess I was off there, but it has been much higher at (estimated) 54% in recent years. Per capita healthcare spending is similarly estimated at $8,713 for 2014 or $9,146 for 2013 depending on which of those estimates you go with.[3] Presumably that includes total healthcare spending, public and private, but the issue is how much potential savings are there to pay for a UBI (by switching to a more effective healthcare system), so I think the total is relevant still, not just medicare + medicaid. Your 33% number for SS seems to come from the inclusion of spending on unemployment and labor. The military spending being larger than total discretionary probably comes from inclusion of veteran's benefits and other programs included in with mandatory. The exact numbers aside, I think the larger point still stands that the money is there - once you start looking at how much money is already being spent it's not hard to imagine getting a few trillion together for a UBI. Political feasibility is another matter, I agree it probably won't happen anytime soon for that reason, but saying it's economically infeasible just seems... wrong. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_F... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Military_budget_and_total_US_federal_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
pbreit 11y ago
The point of the article was not "pros & cons of UBI" or "is it feasible?". It was "what would it take?"

tristanburnside 11y ago

Except that his reasoning seems flawed. He says that expanding the Finland trial would require "taxing citizens double what you’re taxing them now". Finland has about 5.5 million in population (this counts children) So 800 * 12 * 5.5mil = 52.8 Billion euro Finland GDP is about 290 Billion euro and their tax take as a % GDP is 20-25%. That's at least 58 Billion euro. So while it would take a lot of work to find the money, it seems that this statement is not really true either.

mc32 11y ago
So what's the budget left for infrastructure, defense, R&D, education, disasters, emergencies?
ntumlin 11y ago
20% * 300 billion = 60 billion is where they're at now, add on 58 billion to pay for basic income and you've doubled taxes.
- spangry 11y ago
  I'm guessing the number would be a fair bit lower when you subtract the savings from abolishing the existing unemployment welfare system (and the cost of administering it). And, in theory, those previously on 'tapering welfare' now face less of a disincentive to work, so there'd be a bump in pretty much any tax revenue base correlated with GDP (i.e. almost all of them). EDIT: Just to give you a sense of what I mean about EMTRs, here's a chart from Australia's most recent tax system review -> http://i.imgur.com/jhRYXiB.png?1 http://i.imgur.com/jhRYXiB.png?1 . The interaction of the tax and welfare system means low income earners face an effective marginal tax rate of almost 80% at certain points of the income range (mostly due to payment tapering).

qrendel 11y ago

People seem to forget just how much is currently spent on a lot of extremely... debatable programs. These are approximate numbers off the top of my head, but: US military spending = $1.5 trillion per year (~$700 billion for the DoD, the rest from other military and NatSec programs) US per capita healthcare spending = $8,600/person/year (edit: corrected by caseysoftware below, that includes private and public spending) Social Security = another ~24% of the federal budget Interest on the national debt = 7% of the US budget Again, rough numbers off the top of my head, but you could get a decent basic income going across the entire US just by switching to an affordable healthcare system and cutting the military budget to something on par with what the rest of the world spends. UBI would also replace and simplify a lot of the existing welfare and social security system, so that portion wouldn't even be additional spending compared to what's already happening. The obstacles seem more political and cultural than fiscal and economic. To a large extent it's basically wanting to replace the current corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex, healthcare, college bubble, etc. systems with something that would (arguably) benefit society far more.

caseysoftware 11y ago
Don't guess when the actual 2015 budget is a single search away: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... Your $1.5T number for military isn't backed up by facts as the entire discretionary spending for all agencies is only $1.1T US per capita healthcare spending - do you mean Medicare and Medicaid? I'm not sure how you came up with this number because $8.6k * 320M people = $2.75T which would be about 66% of the federal budget. Social Security itself is closer to 33% of the federal budget, not the 24% you cite.
- qrendel 11y ago
  Wikipedia gives 24% for both healthcare and social security for 2014.[1] Total military spending is more complicated but is estimated at 28-38% of the total budget (though no citation).[2] That gives somewhere between 0.98 and 1.33 trillion, so I guess I was off there, but it has been much higher at (estimated) 54% in recent years. Per capita healthcare spending is similarly estimated at $8,713 for 2014 or $9,146 for 2013 depending on which of those estimates you go with.[3] Presumably that includes total healthcare spending, public and private, but the issue is how much potential savings are there to pay for a UBI (by switching to a more effective healthcare system), so I think the total is relevant still, not just medicare + medicaid. Your 33% number for SS seems to come from the inclusion of spending on unemployment and labor. The military spending being larger than total discretionary probably comes from inclusion of veteran's benefits and other programs included in with mandatory. The exact numbers aside, I think the larger point still stands that the money is there - once you start looking at how much money is already being spent it's not hard to imagine getting a few trillion together for a UBI. Political feasibility is another matter, I agree it probably won't happen anytime soon for that reason, but saying it's economically infeasible just seems... wrong. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_F... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Military_budget_and_total_US_federal_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...

pbreit 11y ago

The point of the article was not "pros & cons of UBI" or "is it feasible?". It was "what would it take?"