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I've always had this question when UBI comes up, maybe now will have a chance to have an answer. Total US budget income for 2019: $3.422 trillion. US populatio

by Rogach 6y ago

I've always had this question when UBI comes up, maybe now will have a chance to have an answer. Total US budget income for 2019: $3.422 trillion. US population: 328 million. Assuming that we simply divide the entire budget amongst everyone, we get: >>> 3.422e12 / 328e6 / 12 = $870 per month Minumum wage in US is $7.25, so assuming usual 40-hour work week minimum income is about $1300 per month. So even if US just drops all other concerns - healthcare, military, infrastructure - and just distributes money among the population, then it's still less than 70% than minimum wage. If we assume that only 50% of the budget is spent on UBI (still unsustainable in my opinion) then the number will get even lower. And that's US, arguably the richest and most powerful country. For other countries this calculation is even worse. Maybe there's an error in my calculations? How is UBI even supposed to work, where the money should come from?

manquer 6y ago
Couple of problems with your calculation . Not everyone of the 328 million will be covered by UBI , definitely not children for example . UBI is not meant to be full replacement of a minimum wage salary , like you said we don’t yet live in a resource rich utopia were people only work when they want to, not because they need to. sensible UBI proposals posit that it is efficient to directly disburse money without all the bureaucracy in programs for the economically affected , it also means trusting the recipients to make better judgements on how to spend that money than the government. They could be wrong , while early studies have shown positive indicators, they are small and long term impact is not really well understood. Personally I don’t think it is a good idea for a country. From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. This has been solved in ME by bringing in immigrants as effectively slave labour. Either you end up with nobody doing that work or you have to import labour who don’t enjoy the same benefits creating a classist society.
- rumanator 6y ago
  > From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. That's because those jobs are shitty to begin with. From where I'm standing, it's clear that the problem is the inherited shittyness of those jobs, not UBI. Perhaps it's worth a shot investing some work making those jobs less shitty? I mean, FAANGs felt the need to invest heavily in job satisfaction to reduce attrition and improve their public image. Why are some companies, and even government entities, complicit in perpetuating the shitty nature of the occupations they expect others to have?
  - manquer 6y ago
    Well some jobs are shitty but some one needs to do them . Economic incentives help in making sure someone does them. Richer a country becomes lesser people in that country want to do those jobs, it is true even here in the U.S. most of the jobs illegal immigrants do, have few takers in the legal job market . FAANG outsource the ugly work to other companies , for example watching flagged video content is one worst jobs out there , most of this is not done in-house . Many of the service jobs in their campuses are done by staff not on their payroll, who don’t enjoy the same benefits . Even for pure tech roles they use contract staff in good amounts who don’t necessarily get the same benefits . There are good reasons for this Facebook is not expert at say building a good team of security guards and they should perhaps leave it to experts The point remains someone got to do these jobs , it does not mean UBI should not happen. Localised implementations mean these problems have to studied and solved for . The drive to automate jobs increases when average pay is higher , for example you will find a lot more cooks, maids and security (gatekeepers) in developing countries in wealthier economies you will find more roombas, more home automation etc. There is no incentive for self driving in say India , economically it won’t make sense given cheap availability of labour . Self driving is going to replace millions of jobs in the U.S. the upfront investment all the big companies are doing will not make economic sense if labour was cheaper. UBI will increase the standard of living which in turn drives the need to automate making UBI more needed as lesser jobs are out there etc.
kwhitefoot 6y ago
Where do you think all that money will go? It isn't incinerated, the poor will spend it and the rich will have it clawed back in taxes. The money will still be in the economy.
- FartyMcFarter 6y ago
  Regardless, the government still needs to fund it.

by Rogach 6y ago

manquer 6y ago

Couple of problems with your calculation . Not everyone of the 328 million will be covered by UBI , definitely not children for example . UBI is not meant to be full replacement of a minimum wage salary , like you said we don’t yet live in a resource rich utopia were people only work when they want to, not because they need to. sensible UBI proposals posit that it is efficient to directly disburse money without all the bureaucracy in programs for the economically affected , it also means trusting the recipients to make better judgements on how to spend that money than the government. They could be wrong , while early studies have shown positive indicators, they are small and long term impact is not really well understood. Personally I don’t think it is a good idea for a country. From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. This has been solved in ME by bringing in immigrants as effectively slave labour. Either you end up with nobody doing that work or you have to import labour who don’t enjoy the same benefits creating a classist society.

rumanator 6y ago
> From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don’t have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. That's because those jobs are shitty to begin with. From where I'm standing, it's clear that the problem is the inherited shittyness of those jobs, not UBI. Perhaps it's worth a shot investing some work making those jobs less shitty? I mean, FAANGs felt the need to invest heavily in job satisfaction to reduce attrition and improve their public image. Why are some companies, and even government entities, complicit in perpetuating the shitty nature of the occupations they expect others to have?
- manquer 6y ago
  Well some jobs are shitty but some one needs to do them . Economic incentives help in making sure someone does them. Richer a country becomes lesser people in that country want to do those jobs, it is true even here in the U.S. most of the jobs illegal immigrants do, have few takers in the legal job market . FAANG outsource the ugly work to other companies , for example watching flagged video content is one worst jobs out there , most of this is not done in-house . Many of the service jobs in their campuses are done by staff not on their payroll, who don’t enjoy the same benefits . Even for pure tech roles they use contract staff in good amounts who don’t necessarily get the same benefits . There are good reasons for this Facebook is not expert at say building a good team of security guards and they should perhaps leave it to experts The point remains someone got to do these jobs , it does not mean UBI should not happen. Localised implementations mean these problems have to studied and solved for . The drive to automate jobs increases when average pay is higher , for example you will find a lot more cooks, maids and security (gatekeepers) in developing countries in wealthier economies you will find more roombas, more home automation etc. There is no incentive for self driving in say India , economically it won’t make sense given cheap availability of labour . Self driving is going to replace millions of jobs in the U.S. the upfront investment all the big companies are doing will not make economic sense if labour was cheaper. UBI will increase the standard of living which in turn drives the need to automate making UBI more needed as lesser jobs are out there etc.

kwhitefoot 6y ago

Where do you think all that money will go? It isn't incinerated, the poor will spend it and the rich will have it clawed back in taxes. The money will still be in the economy.

FartyMcFarter 6y ago
Regardless, the government still needs to fund it.