3 ms·

Even at $1500/mo, this will cost at least $150B/mo. That’s almost additional $2T/yr. This is still not taking in to account free medical care and education. How

Even at $1500/mo, this will cost at least $150B/mo. That’s almost additional $2T/yr. This is still not taking in to account free medical care and education. How do you think govt will pay for this? I think UBI is possible sometime in future when US GDP grows by another 50% and if somehow not all gains gets concentrated to top 1000 richest people which ironically UBI proponents like Dorsey, Altman etc are part of.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Remember that you get the money back. You're sitting there in the middle saying, $150B/mo? I don't want to have to pay that in taxes. I'd have to pay like $1500/mo more in taxes! But then you'd receive $1500/mo. It cancels out, so it doesn't matter. You're really only making net transfers to the bottom half, and even most of those aren't for the entire amount. Someone at the 25th percentile gets $1500 but would be paying $750 in tax themselves. Meanwhile it replaces what the people at the bottom were already getting in food/housing/other assistance. So it really "costs" almost nothing. It may even reduce costs, because now you don't need a wasteful means testing bureaucracy to process and determine eligibility for dozens of separate government benefits that no longer exist.
- sytelus 6y ago
  That looks like very bad math. If you are paying $1500/mo in taxes, you are not in majority. And if you get back that money then who is really paying government bills? The UBI is additional expense and needs to come from extra income to government. I can see the argument that top 1% should pay for it by taxing the hell out of them. Unfortunately that back fires as we have seen in heavily taxed countries and still I don’t think even those extra taxes would be enough to cover it.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    A weird nit pick, the GP commenter was just using an easy-to-conceptualize number. Let's use real numbers: In 2018, the household income quintiles were as follows[1]: Lowest quintile mean: $13,775 Second quintile mean: $37,923 Third quintile mean: $63,572 Fourth quintile mean: $101,570 Highest quintile mean: $233,895 There were about 159M employed persons in the US in the most recent high[2], about 50% of the US population. We want our UBI to cover everybody. To make this simple, because quintiles comprise an equally populated group of people, let's imagine that instead of there being ~32M people per quintile, that our nation has 10 people, where 5 people don't work, and each of the remaining 5 falls into one of the quintiles. If we wanted to define a UBI of $18,000 per person, we need to somehow come up with $18,000 * 10 == $180,000 to distribute to everyone equally. If we fund this progressively, each individual would have to pay: Unemployed #1: 0 Unemployed #2: 0 Unemployed #3: 0 Unemployed #4: 0 Unemployed #5: 0 Lowest: $8,000 Second: $12,000 Third: $18,000 Fourth: $33,000 Highest: $103,000 Total revenue: $180,000 Then consider that everyone here is receiving back 18,000 under the UBI. The highest quintile earner’s net take-home is, thus 233,895-103,000+18,000 == $148,895, which effectively renders their net tax rate approx 36%. If you run this breakdown across all quintiles: Lowest: $13,775 - $8,000 + $18,000 == $23,775 (effective tax -73%) Second: $37,923 - $12,000 + $18,000 == $43,923 (effective tax -16%) Third: $63,572 - $18,000 + $18,000 == $63,572 (effective tax 0%) Fourth: $101,570 - $33,000 + $18,000 == $86,570 (effective tax 15%) Highest: $233,895 - $103,000 + $18,000 == $148,895 (effective tax 36%) You'll notice that the median worker pays nothing, net-net. They pay about $1,500/month, and get back $1,500/mo. The bottom 2 will get back more than they pay. The top 2 pay a tax rate that’s comparable to today’s. The 5 unemployed persons all get $18,000, and because the lowest quintile still ends up with more than that after their taxes, there isn’t a disincentive to work. We can play with different levels of progressivity and generosity, but the idea is the same. We can scale up from single-person quintiles to million-person quintiles, but the percentages don't change. [1] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-... [2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

Remember that you get the money back. You're sitting there in the middle saying, $150B/mo? I don't want to have to pay that in taxes. I'd have to pay like $1500/mo more in taxes! But then you'd receive $1500/mo. It cancels out, so it doesn't matter. You're really only making net transfers to the bottom half, and even most of those aren't for the entire amount. Someone at the 25th percentile gets $1500 but would be paying $750 in tax themselves. Meanwhile it replaces what the people at the bottom were already getting in food/housing/other assistance. So it really "costs" almost nothing. It may even reduce costs, because now you don't need a wasteful means testing bureaucracy to process and determine eligibility for dozens of separate government benefits that no longer exist.

sytelus 6y ago
That looks like very bad math. If you are paying $1500/mo in taxes, you are not in majority. And if you get back that money then who is really paying government bills? The UBI is additional expense and needs to come from extra income to government. I can see the argument that top 1% should pay for it by taxing the hell out of them. Unfortunately that back fires as we have seen in heavily taxed countries and still I don’t think even those extra taxes would be enough to cover it.
- bhupy 6y ago
  A weird nit pick, the GP commenter was just using an easy-to-conceptualize number. Let's use real numbers: In 2018, the household income quintiles were as follows[1]: Lowest quintile mean: $13,775 Second quintile mean: $37,923 Third quintile mean: $63,572 Fourth quintile mean: $101,570 Highest quintile mean: $233,895 There were about 159M employed persons in the US in the most recent high[2], about 50% of the US population. We want our UBI to cover everybody. To make this simple, because quintiles comprise an equally populated group of people, let's imagine that instead of there being ~32M people per quintile, that our nation has 10 people, where 5 people don't work, and each of the remaining 5 falls into one of the quintiles. If we wanted to define a UBI of $18,000 per person, we need to somehow come up with $18,000 * 10 == $180,000 to distribute to everyone equally. If we fund this progressively, each individual would have to pay: Unemployed #1: 0 Unemployed #2: 0 Unemployed #3: 0 Unemployed #4: 0 Unemployed #5: 0 Lowest: $8,000 Second: $12,000 Third: $18,000 Fourth: $33,000 Highest: $103,000 Total revenue: $180,000 Then consider that everyone here is receiving back 18,000 under the UBI. The highest quintile earner’s net take-home is, thus 233,895-103,000+18,000 == $148,895, which effectively renders their net tax rate approx 36%. If you run this breakdown across all quintiles: Lowest: $13,775 - $8,000 + $18,000 == $23,775 (effective tax -73%) Second: $37,923 - $12,000 + $18,000 == $43,923 (effective tax -16%) Third: $63,572 - $18,000 + $18,000 == $63,572 (effective tax 0%) Fourth: $101,570 - $33,000 + $18,000 == $86,570 (effective tax 15%) Highest: $233,895 - $103,000 + $18,000 == $148,895 (effective tax 36%) You'll notice that the median worker pays nothing, net-net. They pay about $1,500/month, and get back $1,500/mo. The bottom 2 will get back more than they pay. The top 2 pay a tax rate that’s comparable to today’s. The 5 unemployed persons all get $18,000, and because the lowest quintile still ends up with more than that after their taxes, there isn’t a disincentive to work. We can play with different levels of progressivity and generosity, but the idea is the same. We can scale up from single-person quintiles to million-person quintiles, but the percentages don't change. [1] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-... [2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons