7 ms·

This is what I point out whenever BI is brought up as a possibility in the US. With 1/4 the population of India, higher GDP, and allowing for all the existing

by chiph 10y ago

This is what I point out whenever BI is brought up as a possibility in the US. With 1/4 the population of India, higher GDP, and allowing for all the existing entitlement programs being retired, we can't afford it either. The math just doesn't work out. Edit: Some grossly simplified numbers. Assumptions: BI matches poverty level. Everyone gets BI (parents receive their children's payments until they reach majority). Family size is 3 (average household size is really 2.54 persons in the US) US Population: 312 million, which is 104 million families (households). The Census dept. says poverty level for a family of 3 is $20,000, so that's what BI must match. This gives us annual BI payments of $2.08 trillion. Savings from shuttered entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, ACA subsidies: $938 billion. EITC & CTC: $362 billion. Total savings is $1.3 trillion annually. But what about Social Security (OASI/DI) with $888 billion in payments? Since that's a pay-it-forward program we can't end it suddenly (it'd be political suicide, in any case). It'd have to be tapered off in some fashion. The trust fund (Al Gore's "Lock Box") doesn't exist as a big pile of money to be tapped, as that has been turned into US-issued Treasury Bonds. So there's a shortfall of about $810 billion each year. Could we tap into the money sent to the Pentagon? Yes, but that's "only" $610 billion and we'd have a military that isn't being paid and with increasingly obsolete equipment. Not a good situation.

Sone7 10y ago
What are you basing that on? I don't buy the idea that America can't afford basic food and shelter for every man woman and child for even a second. Have you ever thought about how much poverty is negatively affecting the potential future of the US? I suspect the cost to society of children growing up in an environment with constant hunger is much, much larger than the cost of feeding that kid.
- chiph 10y ago
  See my edit, with some super-simplified numbers.
woofyman 10y ago
>Savings from shuttered entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, ACA subsidies: $938 billion You're proposing eliminating the health care of 120 million people? What we really need is universal, single payer health care.
- tzs 10y ago
  > What we really need is universal, single payer health care. Why does it need to be single payer? Multi-payer systems can achieve universal or near universal coverage at good costs. See, for example, Germany or Japan.
Jweb_Guru 10y ago
Raise taxes on the wealthy (yes, including Silicon Valley programmers). It's really that simple. People just don't want it to be.
- exclusiv 10y ago
  Silicon valley programmers aren't wealthy. They have good salaries though.
- gumby 10y ago
  > Raise taxes on the wealthy. It's really that simple. I'm a big fan of aggressively progressive tax systems but it isn't as simple as you think. California has a very progressive tax system, with most people paying some but most of the money coming from a small number of taxpayers. Sounds great, and basically most people like it. The problem is that when the economy tanks, California takes a huge hit in income since wealthy taxpayers' capital gains drop precipitously. Yes, there's a simple-to-describe fix: build a surplus in good times and borrow in downtimes. But this is very hard to implement.
- deleted 10y ago
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  - deleted 10y ago
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JackdawX 10y ago
What you've just calculated there is the cost of giving everyone, including middle class and rich people, a $20k tax break. Obviously this wouldn't work, as the amount of tax in and out of the system needs to be the same. The easiest method or distribution to understand is negative income tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM Would it work in real life? Dunno. Lets see what the outcome of the various tests are. The key question isn't the maths actually, but whether people will choose to work enough to support the system.
hackalaugh 10y ago
Kind of thought large scale BI would come as a result of widespread automation of the labor force. This has some good points about potential sources for funding BI, as well as examples of places that have implemented some form of BI (including Alaska), and it's effects on local populations, poverty and personal productivity. https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/ https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-au...
dllthomas 10y ago
As a proponent of this kind of program, I totally agree that $20k is much higher than we could presently afford. The numbers look substantially more practical at 1/2 or 1/3 that, despite replacing less.
- chiph 10y ago
  That's actually per family/household. So per-person it'd be a third of that, based on my assumptions. Something that I haven't heard mentioned is whether BI payments are subject to income tax (like Social Security payments are). The numbers are low enough that the taxman won't take much. Going by the current IRS brackets, and assuming they had no other income (worst-case scenario), the per-person yearly payments of $6,666 would mean a 10% cut, leaving $6,000, or $500 a month. Which is a little more than what people spend at the supermarket.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    > That's actually per family/household. So per-person it'd be a third of that, based on my assumptions. Ah, I'll have to take a closer look at your numbers then.

by chiph 10y ago

Sone7 10y ago

What are you basing that on? I don't buy the idea that America can't afford basic food and shelter for every man woman and child for even a second. Have you ever thought about how much poverty is negatively affecting the potential future of the US? I suspect the cost to society of children growing up in an environment with constant hunger is much, much larger than the cost of feeding that kid.

chiph 10y ago
See my edit, with some super-simplified numbers.

woofyman 10y ago

>Savings from shuttered entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, ACA subsidies: $938 billion You're proposing eliminating the health care of 120 million people? What we really need is universal, single payer health care.

tzs 10y ago
> What we really need is universal, single payer health care. Why does it need to be single payer? Multi-payer systems can achieve universal or near universal coverage at good costs. See, for example, Germany or Japan.

Jweb_Guru 10y ago

Raise taxes on the wealthy (yes, including Silicon Valley programmers). It's really that simple. People just don't want it to be.

exclusiv 10y ago
Silicon valley programmers aren't wealthy. They have good salaries though.
gumby 10y ago
> Raise taxes on the wealthy. It's really that simple. I'm a big fan of aggressively progressive tax systems but it isn't as simple as you think. California has a very progressive tax system, with most people paying some but most of the money coming from a small number of taxpayers. Sounds great, and basically most people like it. The problem is that when the economy tanks, California takes a huge hit in income since wealthy taxpayers' capital gains drop precipitously. Yes, there's a simple-to-describe fix: build a surplus in good times and borrow in downtimes. But this is very hard to implement.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

JackdawX 10y ago

What you've just calculated there is the cost of giving everyone, including middle class and rich people, a $20k tax break. Obviously this wouldn't work, as the amount of tax in and out of the system needs to be the same. The easiest method or distribution to understand is negative income tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM Would it work in real life? Dunno. Lets see what the outcome of the various tests are. The key question isn't the maths actually, but whether people will choose to work enough to support the system.

hackalaugh 10y ago

Kind of thought large scale BI would come as a result of widespread automation of the labor force. This has some good points about potential sources for funding BI, as well as examples of places that have implemented some form of BI (including Alaska), and it's effects on local populations, poverty and personal productivity. https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/ https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-au...

dllthomas 10y ago

As a proponent of this kind of program, I totally agree that $20k is much higher than we could presently afford. The numbers look substantially more practical at 1/2 or 1/3 that, despite replacing less.

chiph 10y ago
That's actually per family/household. So per-person it'd be a third of that, based on my assumptions. Something that I haven't heard mentioned is whether BI payments are subject to income tax (like Social Security payments are). The numbers are low enough that the taxman won't take much. Going by the current IRS brackets, and assuming they had no other income (worst-case scenario), the per-person yearly payments of $6,666 would mean a 10% cut, leaving $6,000, or $500 a month. Which is a little more than what people spend at the supermarket.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  > That's actually per family/household. So per-person it'd be a third of that, based on my assumptions. Ah, I'll have to take a closer look at your numbers then.