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That is fair, it is less commonly advocated. And further, as a political matter, I don't think social security is going anywhere even with UBI. But just from a

That is fair, it is less commonly advocated. And further, as a political matter, I don't think social security is going anywhere even with UBI. But just from a cost standpoint, it seems unlikely that we could actually afford a UBI would that actually provides universal-net-income. In practice those making above a certain threshold (from actual work, investments, or pensions/social-security) would have some kind of claw-back baked into the tax-system. The system still needs to be universal, everyone gets UBI payments, so that we don't cause the perverse effects of current means-tested programs, yet in practice, many individuals would just pay-back the UBI in taxes.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> But just from a cost standpoint, it seems unlikely that we could actually afford a UBI would that actually provides universal-net-income. The point of UBI isn’t provide a universal net income, that’s plainly impossible (at least, from first order effects; after factoring in induced economic growth, it may be possible, but it is still not the point.) The point is to eliminate the welfare trap posed by rapid early clawback of outside income in means-tested welfare programs, and eliminate the inefficiencies of redundant tax and welfare bureaucracies. If you tie in taxes on capital income as a progreasive taxes on non-capital income, it can also be a way to mitigate inequality driven by progressive automation and other factors driving returns to capital and a narrow subset of labor.