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The economists are responding to one very specific version of UBI: Granting every American citizen over 21-years old a universal basic income of $13,000 a year
by pg314 10y ago
The economists are responding to one very specific version of UBI: Granting every American citizen over 21-years old a universal basic income of $13,000 a year — financed by eliminating all transfer programs (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing subsidies, household welfare payments, and farm and corporate subsidies) — would be a better policy than the status quo.
E.g. William Nordhaus disagrees as follows: And the children get nothing? The basic idea is sound but too simplistic as stated.
Some of the comments seem quite shallow too. E.g. Oliver Hart (Nobel prize laureate) says: "Bill Gates would get 13K, which is crazy". You might object to giving the 1% $13K on moral grounds (but they profit from e.g. free infrastructure too, that is no problem?), but if the wastage is only 1%, it would compare very favorably with many other programs.
- pakitan 10y agoThe Bill Gates comment sounds shallow because Bill Gates getting $13K is certainly not the problem. The problem is that this version of UBI essentially takes money from poor folks and gives it to middle class, well-off people. Someone who was getting, say, $2K/month disability benefits, would get $1000 under this UBI version. While a SV programmer would get additional $1000/month out of nowhere. How is that making the society function better?