> Proposing this seems less likely than just researching Star Trek replicators to reduce the need to buy food or something. The problem with that is, without U

> Proposing this seems less likely than just researching Star Trek replicators to reduce the need to buy food or something. The problem with that is, without UBI, replicators don't solve the problem. The corporation that invents such a thing would get rich and charge the poorest to use it. We currently HAVE enough food, shelter, and health care as a society to cover everyone, but the efficiency/productivity gains haven't sufficiently sufficiently benefited everyone. UBI is one proposed option for correcting that situation. As for the actual cost - just as an exercise for trimming, without going into excessive detail: * About 80 million of the 330 million in the US are under 18[1]. Let's assume 4 year olds don't need UBI. Maybe there's a childcare credit, maybe not, but for the sake of NOT encouraging parents to have kids just for the paycheck, let's start UBI at 18+ years old * About half of US households make over $75k right now[2]. 33% make over 100k. I'm handwaving a bit here, but let's say the tax changes to support UBI result in increased taxes, and the "breakeven" point is somewhere around the 75k mark (i.e., above 75k household income - which would be 87k for a 1 person home, or 99k for a 2 person home, with the UBI - there's enough taxed off that the household is paying as much or more in taxes than they get from UBI). With those two tweaks, you're down to 125 million people or less that are getting more than they put in. And that comes to about 1.25T USD. And... if you look at our spending trends[3], that 7T USD number for 2021 you quoted already includes 1.6T in "income security". So it might actually be possible to hit UBI with the current budget/deficit by rearranging how the money is distributed. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri... [3] https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spending/trends/ https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spend...