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325 million people in the US. Give each person $10k so they can feed themselves and live in a tent. That's 3.25 trillion dollars. The total federal budget in

325 million people in the US. Give each person $10k so they can feed themselves and live in a tent. That's 3.25 trillion dollars. The total federal budget in 2015 was 3.8 trillion dollars [0]. After we disband the army, navy and air force, liquidate medicare, medicade and social security where do you think we should get the missing 1 trillion or so from? [0] https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...

alexandros 8y ago
Do you really think everyone of the 325 million will be a recipient of the $10k income, or perhaps only the ones that earn the least? Is this a proposal any sane advocate of UBI has put forward, or are you perhaps strawmanning a slight bit? I am not necessarily in agreement with everything UBI related, but adding noise to the conversation isn't going to get us to any insights any quicker.
- zeth___ 8y ago
  Not to be glib but _Universal_ rather implies something.
  - felix_nagaand 8y ago
    Sure universal does imply everyone. However just because on paper someone recieved $10k that does necessarily translate into an expenditure or disbursement.
- hueving 8y ago
  If it's only for poor people it's not UBI. It's just a less restricted form of welfare.
oldcynic 8y ago
How many under 18s in that 325m? UBI would be for those of working age would it not? I've seen arguments UBI should include pensioners, but never for it to include minors.
- hueving 8y ago
  About 24% under 18. Dropping them doesn't even begin to address the massive shortfall.
  - jimnotgym 8y ago
    Surely it addresses 24% of the shortfall? That is nearly a quarter in one answer. You are making it look much more achievable.
    - hueving 8y ago
      A quarter is irrelevant when we are talking orders of magnitude compared to current social programs.
- zeth___ 8y ago
  So if you only include 15-64 that is 200m [0] But since you want to keep social security, medicaid and medicare you need to keep a budget that somehow has 2 trillion dollars for BUI and 2 trillion for pensioners and children. Not much of an improvement really. Which is my main issue with everyone who proposes UBI. Once they are shown the number you get by multiplying population by income they slowly start to reinvent the welfare state that somehow is so terrible it needs to be replaced with UBI. As someone once said: Crypto-currencies are gods way of teaching libertarians why regulations exist in the financial sector. I would like to rephrase that: UBI is gods way of teaching libertarians why the welfare state was created. [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S
  - throwawayj90 8y ago
    It’s not as simple as “just multiplying”, though.. You don’t just give everyone $X dollars. If you make $100,000 per year, you don’t get anything. But if you make below a certain amount, say $10,000, then you pay a negative income tax, which means you get some money. Also I don’t know which version of libertarian you’re using, but I don’t think I’d classify libertarians as being super supportive of UBI...
annabellish 8y ago
The best serious proposals I've seen tend to treat UBI as a form of "negative income tax". Say everyone gets $10k or $20k or whatever, enough to _live_, and then for every two dollars they earn they drop a dollar of "UBI". If you get $10k guaranteed, then somebody earning $20k exactly thus has an effective income tax rate of 0%, neither recieving nor paying income tax to the government. Anything earned over that starts to be taxed as standard currently. You'd need to fiddle with the specific numbers, the rates, et cetera, but most serious suggestions are not as trivial as "let's give everyone ten thousand dollars". The principle behind UBI is not that everyone should recieve the same chunk of money from the government, but to provide an income floor that cannot be gone under that should be sufficient to keep people healthy and able to manage. It's a "Universal Basic Income" in the sense that the basic income is universally set, and nobody can go beneath it - you absolutely can go _above_ it. Relating it to the welfare state is a good comparison, I think. In the same way that socialised healthcare ensures that everyone's bare minimum healthcare is at least up to a good standard, UBI could ensure that everyone's bare minimum income is livable. That doesn't mean that somebody earning $150k/yr still needs that 10k of government assistance, because they are not in need of that income protection (at that moment - of course it immediately returns should they _stop_ earning that much).
- jimnotgym 8y ago
  Indeed, in the UK we have a personal allowance of around £10k of income which is not taxed. If you either remove that allowance or add the UBI to your earned income (same answer), you collect a lot more tax and the budget is now higher. I think we have to be clear though, we are expecting to have to increase taxation to pay for UBI. If the need for UBI is driven by automation removing jobs, then the extra wealth that the automation creates is going to have to be re-distributed. It is also time to revisit the special treatment that capital (especially land) gets in the tax system. Land Value Tax is perhaps a much more socially aware approach.
brosirmandude 8y ago
A political candidate for president is actually running on a UBI platform. The way he says we'll pay for it is this: "Andrew proposes funding UBI by consolidating some welfare programs and implementing a Value-Added Tax (VAT) of 10%. Current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally – most would prefer cash with no restriction. A Value-Added Tax (VAT) is a tax on the production of goods or services a business produces. It is a fair tax and it makes it much harder for large corporations, who are experts at hiding profits and income, to avoid paying their fair share. A VAT is nothing new. 160 out of 193 countries in the world already have a Value-Added Tax or something similar, including all of Europe which has an average VAT of 20 percent." Source: https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/ https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/

alexandros 8y ago

Do you really think everyone of the 325 million will be a recipient of the $10k income, or perhaps only the ones that earn the least? Is this a proposal any sane advocate of UBI has put forward, or are you perhaps strawmanning a slight bit? I am not necessarily in agreement with everything UBI related, but adding noise to the conversation isn't going to get us to any insights any quicker.

zeth___ 8y ago
Not to be glib but _Universal_ rather implies something.
- felix_nagaand 8y ago
  Sure universal does imply everyone. However just because on paper someone recieved $10k that does necessarily translate into an expenditure or disbursement.
hueving 8y ago
If it's only for poor people it's not UBI. It's just a less restricted form of welfare.

oldcynic 8y ago

How many under 18s in that 325m? UBI would be for those of working age would it not? I've seen arguments UBI should include pensioners, but never for it to include minors.

hueving 8y ago
About 24% under 18. Dropping them doesn't even begin to address the massive shortfall.
- jimnotgym 8y ago
  Surely it addresses 24% of the shortfall? That is nearly a quarter in one answer. You are making it look much more achievable.
  - hueving 8y ago
    A quarter is irrelevant when we are talking orders of magnitude compared to current social programs.
zeth___ 8y ago
So if you only include 15-64 that is 200m [0] But since you want to keep social security, medicaid and medicare you need to keep a budget that somehow has 2 trillion dollars for BUI and 2 trillion for pensioners and children. Not much of an improvement really. Which is my main issue with everyone who proposes UBI. Once they are shown the number you get by multiplying population by income they slowly start to reinvent the welfare state that somehow is so terrible it needs to be replaced with UBI. As someone once said: Crypto-currencies are gods way of teaching libertarians why regulations exist in the financial sector. I would like to rephrase that: UBI is gods way of teaching libertarians why the welfare state was created. [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S
- throwawayj90 8y ago
  It’s not as simple as “just multiplying”, though.. You don’t just give everyone $X dollars. If you make $100,000 per year, you don’t get anything. But if you make below a certain amount, say $10,000, then you pay a negative income tax, which means you get some money. Also I don’t know which version of libertarian you’re using, but I don’t think I’d classify libertarians as being super supportive of UBI...

annabellish 8y ago

The best serious proposals I've seen tend to treat UBI as a form of "negative income tax". Say everyone gets $10k or $20k or whatever, enough to _live_, and then for every two dollars they earn they drop a dollar of "UBI". If you get $10k guaranteed, then somebody earning $20k exactly thus has an effective income tax rate of 0%, neither recieving nor paying income tax to the government. Anything earned over that starts to be taxed as standard currently. You'd need to fiddle with the specific numbers, the rates, et cetera, but most serious suggestions are not as trivial as "let's give everyone ten thousand dollars". The principle behind UBI is not that everyone should recieve the same chunk of money from the government, but to provide an income floor that cannot be gone under that should be sufficient to keep people healthy and able to manage. It's a "Universal Basic Income" in the sense that the basic income is universally set, and nobody can go beneath it - you absolutely can go _above_ it. Relating it to the welfare state is a good comparison, I think. In the same way that socialised healthcare ensures that everyone's bare minimum healthcare is at least up to a good standard, UBI could ensure that everyone's bare minimum income is livable. That doesn't mean that somebody earning $150k/yr still needs that 10k of government assistance, because they are not in need of that income protection (at that moment - of course it immediately returns should they _stop_ earning that much).

jimnotgym 8y ago
Indeed, in the UK we have a personal allowance of around £10k of income which is not taxed. If you either remove that allowance or add the UBI to your earned income (same answer), you collect a lot more tax and the budget is now higher. I think we have to be clear though, we are expecting to have to increase taxation to pay for UBI. If the need for UBI is driven by automation removing jobs, then the extra wealth that the automation creates is going to have to be re-distributed. It is also time to revisit the special treatment that capital (especially land) gets in the tax system. Land Value Tax is perhaps a much more socially aware approach.

brosirmandude 8y ago

A political candidate for president is actually running on a UBI platform. The way he says we'll pay for it is this: "Andrew proposes funding UBI by consolidating some welfare programs and implementing a Value-Added Tax (VAT) of 10%. Current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally – most would prefer cash with no restriction. A Value-Added Tax (VAT) is a tax on the production of goods or services a business produces. It is a fair tax and it makes it much harder for large corporations, who are experts at hiding profits and income, to avoid paying their fair share. A VAT is nothing new. 160 out of 193 countries in the world already have a Value-Added Tax or something similar, including all of Europe which has an average VAT of 20 percent." Source: https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/ https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/