5 ms·

Why are you using total population? I would only cut a check to adults. If you include kids, that's a hell of an incentive to have huge families. Adult populat

by maratd 9y ago

Why are you using total population? I would only cut a check to adults. If you include kids, that's a hell of an incentive to have huge families. Adult population is 240 million. That's $2.8 trillion. Quite a bit less than your number.

gremlinsinc 9y ago
Everyone shares the home, so I'd think I'd do it by household...but cut 2 checks, average home rental cost nationwide + average cost of food at grocer. Then for each dependent add cost of food..maybe $100-200 extra. So say it's 1200 for rent, and 300 for food, and 3 kids at $100 extra they'd get like 1800 for everyone in household..
- maratd 9y ago
  > Everyone shares the home, so I'd think I'd do it by household Sure, except that would discourage co-habitation/marriage. You get more checks by living apart. Balancing incentives is actually quite hard.
  - cam_l 9y ago
    I like this comment. I always do a mental check on solutions to see not how they succeed but how they fail.
godelski 9y ago
While we're at it, a good starting point might be that UBI only be used for those under the poverty line. We just guarantee people make it to the poverty line. But if we only look at below poverty we have 45m people making under 12k (per person, not household). So that's only $580B. That's a much easier number to come by. And could be less if you're bringing them up to that level, but I think this would need to be above poverty level. We could make it a little more fair and diminish the amount given based on income. If you're worried about incentives, this might ease problems on those near (but above) poverty line. Possibly providing more social mobility. This is just me spit-balling here though. We could look at "hybrid" methods that can help ease us into this shift in economy.
- dyarosla 9y ago
  That's not UBI though; and defeats a lot of the positives of UBI.
  - godelski 9y ago
    I agree, but I'm suggesting it as a good starting step. And what about the graded case? Surely there is a diminishing effect of handing people money once they make a certain amount. And I'm just saying, with so many against the idea of UBI, just start with a small step. Not as effective, but better than where we're at, right?

by maratd 9y ago

gremlinsinc 9y ago

Everyone shares the home, so I'd think I'd do it by household...but cut 2 checks, average home rental cost nationwide + average cost of food at grocer. Then for each dependent add cost of food..maybe $100-200 extra. So say it's 1200 for rent, and 300 for food, and 3 kids at $100 extra they'd get like 1800 for everyone in household..

maratd 9y ago
> Everyone shares the home, so I'd think I'd do it by household Sure, except that would discourage co-habitation/marriage. You get more checks by living apart. Balancing incentives is actually quite hard.
- cam_l 9y ago
  I like this comment. I always do a mental check on solutions to see not how they succeed but how they fail.

godelski 9y ago

While we're at it, a good starting point might be that UBI only be used for those under the poverty line. We just guarantee people make it to the poverty line. But if we only look at below poverty we have 45m people making under 12k (per person, not household). So that's only $580B. That's a much easier number to come by. And could be less if you're bringing them up to that level, but I think this would need to be above poverty level. We could make it a little more fair and diminish the amount given based on income. If you're worried about incentives, this might ease problems on those near (but above) poverty line. Possibly providing more social mobility. This is just me spit-balling here though. We could look at "hybrid" methods that can help ease us into this shift in economy.

dyarosla 9y ago
That's not UBI though; and defeats a lot of the positives of UBI.
- godelski 9y ago
  I agree, but I'm suggesting it as a good starting step. And what about the graded case? Surely there is a diminishing effect of handing people money once they make a certain amount. And I'm just saying, with so many against the idea of UBI, just start with a small step. Not as effective, but better than where we're at, right?