5 ms·
Math to do this in the USA in case you're intererested: 210,000,000 working age adults * $5900 / mo * 12 months ~= 15 TRILLION dollars per year. The annual GD
by skrowl 6y ago
Math to do this in the USA in case you're intererested:
210,000,000 working age adults * $5900 / mo * 12 months ~= 15 TRILLION dollars per year.
The annual GDP of the USA is about 21.5 trillion.
- syshum 6y agoMoney Printer go brrrrrr It is clear that the Modern Monetary policy is one of infinite spending so why not... by the end of the year we will probably 1/2 to that number in COVID relief anyway
- trash3 6y agoNon stop Yolo meme stonk market. Sign me up!
- arcticbull 6y agolol leverage me up
- arcticbull 6y agoFY2021 budget is about $5T. Private healthcare spending, which is basically just a private tax is another $1.2T. So, we're starting with a "real" budget of $6.2T. This is about 2-3X the budget. Then of course, you can begin walking the number backwards at tax time, and can recover more from folks at the top end of the wealth and income spectrum to offset.
- mhh__ 6y agoI still don't see why this should be universal. It's a nice slogan but it's not unreasonable to have a cutoff.
- arcticbull 6y agoIt's convenient because you can kill off all of the "entitlements" programs at the same time. Drop SNAP, unemployment, disability, drop social security, medicaid, drop everything, and cut a check. This materializes in substantial administrative cost reductions. It's an efficiency. You can claw back from folks who don't need it at tax time.
- Tostino 6y agoThis is exactly what I was planning on typing out as an answer. Well put.
- aidenn0 6y agoI hear this argument a lot but: 1. Some people on disability need far more than any reasonable UBI would provide 2. SNAP, Social Security, Medicaid: Debt is an issue here. Even if you shield UBI payments from bankruptcy, that would still require those with large debt burdens to declare bankruptcy. Libertarians will say that choosing to starve rather than file bankruptcy is a valid life choice, but proponents of the mentioned entitlement programs will probably disagree.
- arcticbull 6y agoGenuine question: > 1. Some people on disability need far more than any reasonable UBI would provide Is that due to medical needs? Because if so, that would seem to be a job not for UBI but for a proper medical system, which this country is also woefully lacking. > 2. SNAP, Social Security, Medicaid: Debt is an issue here. Even if you shield UBI payments from bankruptcy, that would still require those with large debt burdens to declare bankruptcy. Libertarians will say that choosing to starve rather than file bankruptcy is a valid life choice, but proponents of the mentioned entitlement programs will probably disagree. While true, and I agree that it would have to be shielded from bankruptcy... Gallup found that voters who identify as libertarians ranged from 17 to 23% of the American electorate. However, a 2014 Pew Poll found that 23% of Americans who identify as libertarians have little understanding of libertarianism. I'm not sure I'm interested in blocking this proposal on 17% of Americans, 23% of whom don't even know what libertarianism actually is. At that point we're saying libertarians are the "10th dentist who hates Colgate." While I appreciate their principled stance today, I'm confident that given the choice to cash their UBI check or starve, they'll be the first ones in line at the bank.
- aidenn0 6y ago>> 1. Some people on disability need far more than any reasonable UBI would provide > Is that due to medical needs? Because if so, that would seem to be a job not for UBI but for a proper medical system, which this country is also woefully lacking. First of all, you suggested eliminating (among other things) medicaid in favor of UBI. Secondly, define "medical needs" if you are mentally incapable of managing your life, then someone has to care for you in a non-medical manner. As an extreme case, there are people who, if you walk up to them and say "please give me all your money," they will ... give you all their money.
- Filligree 6y agoBecause making it universal is cheaper. If you set the cutoff threshold high, then you're barely saving any money and end up spending a lot more on the bureaucracy than you'd save. On the flip side, if it's anywhere close to the income of a middle-class person then you could get an effect where earning more money makes you worse off. Of course you can taper it off instead of making it a sudden cut-off, but that makes the bureaucracy even bigger.
- o_p 6y agoYou are adding costs and extra work because now you have to make sure everyone is on the income bracket and all the complexities of auditing. Its just much more simple and elegant to make it universal, those at the top brackets will have a negative net due to taxes anyway, so why bother?
- bluecalm 6y agoCutoffs create fiscal cliffs. This is not reasonable. You would need to make it so it's smoothly decreases with income and if you're at it you can just skip that step and deduct it from taxes paid.
- ska 6y agoThe argument is that it gets rid of as much of the bureaucratic nonsense. Say you send everyone a check, adjust income tax so it washes out at something like 2x or 3x the base rate. No extra bureaucracy because your tax authority already has to to that, and at the same time you can same money on administration of a bunch of current programs (and get rid of them). Note that it clearly doesn't replace all programs. But UBI + universal health care of some sort would sure make a dent (US specific). There are valid critiques of UBI's viability but universality isn't one of them.
- trash3 6y agoOr 10 percent of US Army budget
- skrowl 6y agoYou honestly think the US military annual budget is 150 trillion / year?
- arcticbull 6y agoHonestly if someone told me that, I might believe them haha. $706B. Enough to provide basic income for $300/month.
- mminer237 6y agoDo you really think giving everyone $3,600 per year would be worth having no military whatsoever?
- arcticbull 6y agoNope, not at all, I was just pointing it out as a frame of reference to anchor the conversation.
- abfan1127 6y agoI'm no UBI proponent. However, I think most UBI proposals have tax adjustments for those with income (better proposals are gradients, not step functions). So not all 210 million adults get it long term...
- e-clinton 6y agoWhy do this for someone making 200k/year? I’d imagine we’d select people below a certain income level
- thebean11 6y agoBecause it's much easier to just subtract the UBI at tax time from the high earners than to create an entirely new bureaucracy deciding who gets UBI.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mytailorisrich 6y agoSo it's not really universal and ultimately it boils down to welfare and benefits as they exist, e.g. in Europe. So what's new? Edit: for example in France there is a minimum income benefit that everyone is entitled, one might call that 'universal basic income', then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenu_de_solidarit%C3%A9_active https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenu_de_solidarit%C3%A9_acti... The suggestion that this should be paid to everyone then clawed back from most people though taxes is rather odd. A lot of these discussions on UBI in the US seem to either be utopian or try to reinvent the wheel...
- thebean11 6y agoI'm not sure how much you know about existing welfare systems in the US, but they are nothing close to getting a $6k check every month..plenty of people earning <$40k aren't eligible for them. Some people earning $0 can't even get them, and the ones that are aren't getting anywhere near a livable amount of money. People in higher tax brackets probably wouldn't immediately benefit sure, but tax bracket isn't permanent.
- arcticbull 6y agoGuaranteed minimum income on a regular basis.
- _Microft 6y agoIt was a one-time payment, not a monthly recurring one.
- nthitz 6y agoRecipients in the video didn't receive 5,900 every month, just once.
- thebean11 6y agoI think UBI would work with half as much cash. Maybe 4k / month if it isn't in addition to free healthcare. $4k per month is how much I spent in NYC not including health insurance.
- kwhitefoot 6y agoAnd what most people seem to forget is that the vast bulk of the UBI money is immediately spent on local goods and services so it quite likely generates a lot of local economic activity.
- goodJobWalrus 6y agodidn't give them $5,900 monthly, that was annual. $5,900 monthly would be more than most people in US make after tax.
- jandrese 6y agoHence the reason the final total was above GDP. That should have been a red flag that there was a problem in the calculation.
- bogwog 6y agoIf UBI were to be implemented in the US, there's no way it'd be $5900/mo. Andrew Yang's plan (https://2020.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/ https://2020.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/), which was actually realistic, would've given out $1000 per month.
- La1n 6y ago>which was actually realistic, would've given out $1000 per month. I am not from the US, would it be realistic to live on 1k USD a month?
- extrapickles 6y agoThat amount would likely require universal health care to make it comfortable to live off of. You would still not be able to afford decent housing in a major city though, as you would have to split a studio apartment with several people.
- Ekaros 6y agoWith UBI I always question should it even afford a decent housing in major city. Or is it more reasonable to expect it to pay for decent housing(a flat) and basic living expenses including food, clothing and other necessities in some town with reasonable basic services?
- carabiner 6y agoHuge swaths (40% or so?) of the US live outside of big cities. It's just inconceivable that every one of them is seriously deprived and miserable doing so. They have friends, hobbies, lives that they can do outside of dense urban areas.
- extrapickles 6y agoYou should be able to afford major city if you are able to split the fixed costs of living with someone. Its more likely that people on UBI without any supplemental income would live in a suburb of the major city. A true UBI would make abuse of low wage workers difficult as they can easily leave the job without worrying about being able to eat.
- mey 6y agoFor comparison the Federal Budget submitted for 2019 was 4.4 Trillion dollars. Almost 1 Trillion was Military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget Not sure how you calculate things like tax credits and other methods of inflation/printing money.
- odyssey7 6y agoThis study gave a single (USD-equivalent) $5,900 payment, not a recurring monthly payment. The benefit was demonstrated to last a number of months. It's worth comparing this to the US median income. That's about $32k annually, which equals $2,666 / month. I wouldn't expect a universal basic income program to attempt to be an equivalent alternative to earning the median income.
- r00fus 6y agoYes, the GDP for the US in 2020 was ~21T and 15T is quite large in perspective. However, this UBI would generate tax income to offset. In fact, its been stated that welfare like food stamps (SNAP) actually brings in more 170% revenue vs. assistance provided [1]. If this is tax revenue positive (even if the return isn't as high as food stamps), why would the cost be a concern? [1] https://4thworldmovement.org/food-stamps-waste-money/ https://4thworldmovement.org/food-stamps-waste-money/
- joshuawright11 6y agoDefinitely agree that doing this per month per citizen would be infeasible, though an interesting alternative is doing a negative income tax. Effectively UBI but declines as the person makes money. Some rough calculations: In 2019 there were 34m people in poverty[1], lets assume 2 people per household (lower than nationwide average of ~3) so 17m households. Topping each of them up to above the poverty line (~13k/y/person) would be 26k / household / year would be 442bn (and that's assuming all people below poverty line make 0 dollars). Not bad considering the government already spends over twice that (1tr) on welfare each year[3]. Like others have said healthcare, housing issues etc would still be very damaging to some, but it's an interesting concept that could put every person in the country above the poverty line for not that much $$. I also like that it (theoretically) still encourages working since a) poverty line is still a lower quality of life. and b) when you're below the line and make more money, the government gives you less $$ but less than you are making. i.e. if you make an extra 2 dollars, the government stopped reduces by 1, or something akin to that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax [2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27... [3] https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-%20Welfare%20Spending%20The%20Largest%20Item%20In%20The%20Federal%20Budget.pdf https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-...
- mytailorisrich 6y agoSo basically like what exists e.g. in France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenu_de_solidarit%C3%A9_active https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenu_de_solidarit%C3%A9_acti...
- clavalle 6y agoI wonder about the GDP, because it took $3 trillion dollars to keep the country humming when less than 30% of the workforce was thrown into turmoil for a few months.
- ska 6y agoThis wasn't a monthly stipend (and it wasn't UBI) - it was one time payment. Even if we were talking UBI, this calculation is pretty meaningless; nobody believes a version of UBI would be rolled out without tax changes.