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I envision it as enough for someone to get by. So not enough for luxury expenditures. Basically food and shelter. I'm also looking at this from the perspective

I envision it as enough for someone to get by. So not enough for luxury expenditures. Basically food and shelter. I'm also looking at this from the perspective of someone in the UK who doesn't have to think of things like health care and education which changes things quite a bit. I'd say around $800 p/m per person would be plenty if you look at food and rent for a room in a shared apartment. Tax revenue should also stretch much further with a UBI. You could reduce huge inefficiency and lay off the majority of staff involved in welfare programs which would amount to massive savings.

mseebach 11y ago
$800/month comes out to just short of 50% of total tax revenue. You need a lot more than massive savings on welfare programs to pull off a 50% cut in all government spending, local, state and federal.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  Ok. I'm just looking at a chart showing the US Federal Budget. 10% on welfare. 25% on pensions. That brings us to 35% so we're still short. Still about 15% off. I believe that the US has lower taxes than many other nations so for a UBI to work that would have to change and would bring us closer to the mark. Reducing some of the 21% spent on defence would also help and the health care sector would be interesting. I think for it to work you go to a completely public system. That would be important to make that $800 figure work and it might also reduce some of the inefficiencies in the current system (US is spending much higher % of GDP than other OECD countries despite having less coverage for citizens). I think there are lots of ways to adjust current spending and make it work. My personal idea would not fly with the American public though (reduce defence spending by 80% and raise taxes - especially for higher earners).
notahacker 11y ago
The savings from laying off a few bureaucrats and jobcentre employees aren't going to change the fact that the £250bn needed just to give a $800/£550 per month BI to working age adults in the UK is a lot more than the £3bn spent on unemployment benefit. (eliminating tax credits, disability benefits and housing benefits will net another £110bn, but also render a lot of poor people poorer or even homeless, which is the opposite of what BI is generally proposed to do)
- takno 11y ago
  I think you need to view state pensions and minimum income for pensioners into the numbers. You would also want to increase basic rate tax at least to the point where you'd reclaimed the money from anybody at or above the higher rate threshold.
- MagnumOpus 11y ago
  Yes, obviously the program needs to be revenue neutral for middle incomes, otherwise it is unaffordable. So for the average bloke in the UK who earns £30k and receives a £6.6k UBI in addition, taxes would have to be increased by 22 percentage points to balance. So rather than 0%-20%-40% income tax bands, we are talking about 20%-40%-60% tax - which looks ridiculously high on the face of it, but has no effect on after-tax income of the average earner after the UBI. Because of the shocking sticker effect of the taxes, my view is that it is a lot better to position UBI as "negative income tax for low earners" if you want to get it adopted...
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "eliminating tax credits, disability benefits and housing benefits will net another £110bn, but also render a lot of poor people poorer or even homeless, which is the opposite of what BI is generally proposed to do)" I don't see how that's true. Isn't the UBI supposed to replace ALL of those programmes with a single number for everyone that is sufficient for everyone? If the UBI provides enough for food and shelter you shouldn't need housing benefits. Disability may be different I suppose but if you cannot meet your needs with UBI due to a disability I think that's something you could probably roll into the NHS where equipment you need but cannot afford is provided to you by them (I haven't really thought that through though it's a very good point you've brought up).
  - notahacker 11y ago
    Sure, as I acknowledged in my above post, if you're comfortable with a situation where everybody living in social housing in London is forced to relocate to a different part of the country and severely disabled people are substantially poorer in pure cash terms than before, then you can replace all those programmes with a flat subsidy of £550 per month (or slightly less than the average London room rental in a shared house) and find some way of recovering the remaining additional £140bn cost through increases to gross taxes that leaves lower middle class single people at least no worse off. Otherwise you need a flat subsidy much higher than £550 per month to properly replace the existing subsidy in all parts of the country, which would cost an awful lot more in taxes and make it a very comfortable living in other parts of the country.
xioxox 11y ago
You'd still need some people to work on running welfare programmes. Not every basic need can be met by a fixed sum for everyone. For example, some disabled people need extra money to run a car, get equipment in their homes or perhaps employ a carer (if this wasn't otherwise supplied).
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  Another comment made this point and it's a good one, I hadn't thought about it before. I think when it comes to equipment you could provide that through the NHS (essentially doctors could be in a position to prescribe it). Same goes for a carer. If you need it for health reasons the NHS should be able to prescribe it. I guess then you run into moral issues (e.g. this person doesn't NEED a carer but it would make their life much easier).

mseebach 11y ago

$800/month comes out to just short of 50% of total tax revenue. You need a lot more than massive savings on welfare programs to pull off a 50% cut in all government spending, local, state and federal.

k-mcgrady 11y ago
Ok. I'm just looking at a chart showing the US Federal Budget. 10% on welfare. 25% on pensions. That brings us to 35% so we're still short. Still about 15% off. I believe that the US has lower taxes than many other nations so for a UBI to work that would have to change and would bring us closer to the mark. Reducing some of the 21% spent on defence would also help and the health care sector would be interesting. I think for it to work you go to a completely public system. That would be important to make that $800 figure work and it might also reduce some of the inefficiencies in the current system (US is spending much higher % of GDP than other OECD countries despite having less coverage for citizens). I think there are lots of ways to adjust current spending and make it work. My personal idea would not fly with the American public though (reduce defence spending by 80% and raise taxes - especially for higher earners).

notahacker 11y ago

The savings from laying off a few bureaucrats and jobcentre employees aren't going to change the fact that the £250bn needed just to give a $800/£550 per month BI to working age adults in the UK is a lot more than the £3bn spent on unemployment benefit. (eliminating tax credits, disability benefits and housing benefits will net another £110bn, but also render a lot of poor people poorer or even homeless, which is the opposite of what BI is generally proposed to do)

takno 11y ago
I think you need to view state pensions and minimum income for pensioners into the numbers. You would also want to increase basic rate tax at least to the point where you'd reclaimed the money from anybody at or above the higher rate threshold.
MagnumOpus 11y ago
Yes, obviously the program needs to be revenue neutral for middle incomes, otherwise it is unaffordable. So for the average bloke in the UK who earns £30k and receives a £6.6k UBI in addition, taxes would have to be increased by 22 percentage points to balance. So rather than 0%-20%-40% income tax bands, we are talking about 20%-40%-60% tax - which looks ridiculously high on the face of it, but has no effect on after-tax income of the average earner after the UBI. Because of the shocking sticker effect of the taxes, my view is that it is a lot better to position UBI as "negative income tax for low earners" if you want to get it adopted...
k-mcgrady 11y ago
>> "eliminating tax credits, disability benefits and housing benefits will net another £110bn, but also render a lot of poor people poorer or even homeless, which is the opposite of what BI is generally proposed to do)" I don't see how that's true. Isn't the UBI supposed to replace ALL of those programmes with a single number for everyone that is sufficient for everyone? If the UBI provides enough for food and shelter you shouldn't need housing benefits. Disability may be different I suppose but if you cannot meet your needs with UBI due to a disability I think that's something you could probably roll into the NHS where equipment you need but cannot afford is provided to you by them (I haven't really thought that through though it's a very good point you've brought up).
- notahacker 11y ago
  Sure, as I acknowledged in my above post, if you're comfortable with a situation where everybody living in social housing in London is forced to relocate to a different part of the country and severely disabled people are substantially poorer in pure cash terms than before, then you can replace all those programmes with a flat subsidy of £550 per month (or slightly less than the average London room rental in a shared house) and find some way of recovering the remaining additional £140bn cost through increases to gross taxes that leaves lower middle class single people at least no worse off. Otherwise you need a flat subsidy much higher than £550 per month to properly replace the existing subsidy in all parts of the country, which would cost an awful lot more in taxes and make it a very comfortable living in other parts of the country.

xioxox 11y ago

You'd still need some people to work on running welfare programmes. Not every basic need can be met by a fixed sum for everyone. For example, some disabled people need extra money to run a car, get equipment in their homes or perhaps employ a carer (if this wasn't otherwise supplied).

k-mcgrady 11y ago
Another comment made this point and it's a good one, I hadn't thought about it before. I think when it comes to equipment you could provide that through the NHS (essentially doctors could be in a position to prescribe it). Same goes for a carer. If you need it for health reasons the NHS should be able to prescribe it. I guess then you run into moral issues (e.g. this person doesn't NEED a carer but it would make their life much easier).