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There's a few assumptions built into your basic math. Does the benefit need to be $12,000/year? Can we phase out Social Security ($888B) Health Care spending ($

by jljljl 10y ago

There's a few assumptions built into your basic math. Does the benefit need to be $12,000/year? Can we phase out Social Security ($888B) Health Care spending ($602B) and other safety net services ($362B) as we phase in basic income? Setting the annual benefit to an average of $7,000 and phasing out other safety net services get's the basic math a lot closer, while theoretically helping more people than the current system. I'm not saying Basic Income is a definite win, but back of the envelope assumptions are usually too simple to dismiss or validate an idea.

jimmyswimmy 10y ago
Your proposal gets the math a lot closer, although I thought social security paid more than 7k/yr... so now grandma has to take a haircut on her income and pay for Healthcare out of pocket too. I'm no social security lover but that seems extreme. The allure of UBI is interesting but I've never figured out how the math works out without making sizable reductions in quality of life for significant chunks of the population. The money has to come from somewhere... I think UBI works out to be worse than zero sum economically. Anyway I've always been a firm believer that if you can't come up with a compelling and largely accurate back of the envelope justification for your story, you're not going to get many adherents.