5 ms·

The U.S. Could Help Solve Its Poverty Problem with a Universal Basic Income

2 points by JSeymourATL 4y ago

argella 4y ago
Milk will be $30/gallon.
amalgamated_inc 4y ago
This is ridiculous. "Scientific" American? The Alaskan UBI of $1,600 PER YEAR proves that UBI doesn't disincentivize work? Yea, not if you can't even live a single month on it.. Simple math. The US federal budget for 2021 was $6.8T. The US has about 330 million people. This yield about $20k per person if we spend the entire federal budget on UBI. That means we haven't paid for any roads, border patrol, military, federal police, social security, medicare/medicaid, or any of the other stuff, so that's all coming out of those $20k. And the $6.8T figure is actually very inflated, because that includes pandemic money. The 2019 budget was "only" $4.4T. And we didn't have enough income to pay even for that. So none of these pipe dreams would even be sustainable. Now if we wanted to have a discussion about better targeting of the money we already do spent, sure. But UBI is just a crazy pipe dream and the math simply doesn't add up and never will. Bottom line: a society rich enough to afford meaningful UBI doesn't need it, because people could just get a part-time job and become financially independent within very short time frames.
- MrGuts 4y ago
  Your "simple math" is pretending that once a UBI payment is made, its value is just consumed and totally disappears. You are not taking into account the velocity of money, that is how many times a unit of currency mediates trade. A meaningful UBI would be like a stimulus without inflation, since the total money supply need not increase. I'd also say, unstable part-time gig work that does not allow financial independence also does a pretty good job of disincentivizing work. If you're going to end up poor, why not just be poor without the added hassle of work?
  - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
    But all the money we already pay also has a velocity of money, and a lot of it is very quick (medicare/medicaid/social security aren't being hoarded). Stimulus without inflation - what? It'd be the opposite. We'd turn the economy even more into a consumer economy, lowering savings and investment.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

2 points by JSeymourATL 4y ago

Milk will be $30/gallon.

This is ridiculous. "Scientific" American? The Alaskan UBI of $1,600 PER YEAR proves that UBI doesn't disincentivize work? Yea, not if you can't even live a single month on it.. Simple math. The US federal budget for 2021 was $6.8T. The US has about 330 million people. This yield about $20k per person if we spend the entire federal budget on UBI. That means we haven't paid for any roads, border patrol, military, federal police, social security, medicare/medicaid, or any of the other stuff, so that's all coming out of those $20k. And the $6.8T figure is actually very inflated, because that includes pandemic money. The 2019 budget was "only" $4.4T. And we didn't have enough income to pay even for that. So none of these pipe dreams would even be sustainable. Now if we wanted to have a discussion about better targeting of the money we already do spent, sure. But UBI is just a crazy pipe dream and the math simply doesn't add up and never will. Bottom line: a society rich enough to afford meaningful UBI doesn't need it, because people could just get a part-time job and become financially independent within very short time frames.

MrGuts 4y ago
Your "simple math" is pretending that once a UBI payment is made, its value is just consumed and totally disappears. You are not taking into account the velocity of money, that is how many times a unit of currency mediates trade. A meaningful UBI would be like a stimulus without inflation, since the total money supply need not increase. I'd also say, unstable part-time gig work that does not allow financial independence also does a pretty good job of disincentivizing work. If you're going to end up poor, why not just be poor without the added hassle of work?
- amalgamated_inc 4y ago
  But all the money we already pay also has a velocity of money, and a lot of it is very quick (medicare/medicaid/social security aren't being hoarded). Stimulus without inflation - what? It'd be the opposite. We'd turn the economy even more into a consumer economy, lowering savings and investment.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]