5 ms·

Okay, now I am 100% that you're just trolling indiscriminately. There have been at least a couple real-world experiments done, have you even had the decency to

Okay, now I am 100% that you're just trolling indiscriminately. There have been at least a couple real-world experiments done, have you even had the decency to look it up on Google? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=basic+income+experiment https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=basic+income+experiment

ansimionescu 13y ago
(apologies for the harsh tone, I was tired and grumpy)
vinceguidry 13y ago
Small-scale experimentation on the effects on a small subset of recipients is not quite the same as understanding how it would affect the entire economy of a nation.
harryh 13y ago
He's not trolling. Really it doesn't work and the math is simple. There are ~310M Americans. To give them even 10k each per year that's 3.1 Trillion which is more that the US gov't collected in taxes last year.
- jaydz 13y ago
  Requirements could help make the math work. For example, only adult citizens with no income may participate in the program.
  - harryh 13y ago
    Sure, but we already have that.
    - lilsunnybee 13y ago
      not really. i'm unemployed and don't qualify for any financial aid that i'm aware of. Thank goodness for my family taking me in, or i'd definitely be homeless.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- wutbrodo 13y ago
  Warning: back of the envelope calculations ahead You're forgetting the fact that a basic income would obviate all means-based welfare programs, unemployment insurance, social security, etc; this means 2.3 TRILLION dollars (1.03T from means-based welfare programs and 1.3T from SS) in savings. Also, it would be enormously strange if we gave a full basic income to every infant, toddler, child and teen in the United States. It seems pretty obvious that kids would count as an adjustment to your received basic income that's <100% of an entire additional basic income. For comparison, a single-person household on average gets $200/mo in food stamps and a family of four gets $500/mo, which works out to children costing 1/4th as much as an adult (and note that food stamps are more sensitive to additional children than housing costs are). The percentage of the population that's below 18 is somewhere around ~25%, so depending on the multiplier that takes ~$600B off of the cost. This means that the actual incremental cost of the program would be roughly $200B(with the weak-link assumption here being the multiplier of a child's cost). This is obviously a large sum of money, but considering the scope of such a program, a revenue increase of that magnitude would honestly be relatively trivial. This is particularly the case when you realize that if you raise tax rates just enough to cancel out the basic income for, say, upper-middle class or higher, you end up with no net tax increase for anyone and an additional bump in revenue (equivalent to a reduction in cost from limiting the basic income to everyone below a given income level, without the administrative hassle of means-testing). I'm not saying the math WILL definitely work out, because I don't know what the basic-income figure would actually be (especially given C-o-L differences), but there's enough extreme inaccuracies in the bound you're giving that it's not really useful.
  - harryh 13y ago
    Social Security pays the retired 10s of Ks per year so they can live comfortably after paying into the system for their entire career. You think we should get rid of that in favor of a basic income of ~10k for everyone? That's going to suck pretty bad for the retired. You're certainly entitled to your opinion if you do think that but the vast vast vast majority of Americans are going to disagree with you.
    - wutbrodo 13y ago

ansimionescu 13y ago

(apologies for the harsh tone, I was tired and grumpy)

vinceguidry 13y ago

Small-scale experimentation on the effects on a small subset of recipients is not quite the same as understanding how it would affect the entire economy of a nation.

harryh 13y ago

He's not trolling. Really it doesn't work and the math is simple. There are ~310M Americans. To give them even 10k each per year that's 3.1 Trillion which is more that the US gov't collected in taxes last year.

jaydz 13y ago
Requirements could help make the math work. For example, only adult citizens with no income may participate in the program.
- harryh 13y ago
  Sure, but we already have that.
  - lilsunnybee 13y ago
    not really. i'm unemployed and don't qualify for any financial aid that i'm aware of. Thank goodness for my family taking me in, or i'd definitely be homeless.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
wutbrodo 13y ago
Warning: back of the envelope calculations ahead You're forgetting the fact that a basic income would obviate all means-based welfare programs, unemployment insurance, social security, etc; this means 2.3 TRILLION dollars (1.03T from means-based welfare programs and 1.3T from SS) in savings. Also, it would be enormously strange if we gave a full basic income to every infant, toddler, child and teen in the United States. It seems pretty obvious that kids would count as an adjustment to your received basic income that's <100% of an entire additional basic income. For comparison, a single-person household on average gets $200/mo in food stamps and a family of four gets $500/mo, which works out to children costing 1/4th as much as an adult (and note that food stamps are more sensitive to additional children than housing costs are). The percentage of the population that's below 18 is somewhere around ~25%, so depending on the multiplier that takes ~$600B off of the cost. This means that the actual incremental cost of the program would be roughly $200B(with the weak-link assumption here being the multiplier of a child's cost). This is obviously a large sum of money, but considering the scope of such a program, a revenue increase of that magnitude would honestly be relatively trivial. This is particularly the case when you realize that if you raise tax rates just enough to cancel out the basic income for, say, upper-middle class or higher, you end up with no net tax increase for anyone and an additional bump in revenue (equivalent to a reduction in cost from limiting the basic income to everyone below a given income level, without the administrative hassle of means-testing). I'm not saying the math WILL definitely work out, because I don't know what the basic-income figure would actually be (especially given C-o-L differences), but there's enough extreme inaccuracies in the bound you're giving that it's not really useful.
- harryh 13y ago
  Social Security pays the retired 10s of Ks per year so they can live comfortably after paying into the system for their entire career. You think we should get rid of that in favor of a basic income of ~10k for everyone? That's going to suck pretty bad for the retired. You're certainly entitled to your opinion if you do think that but the vast vast vast majority of Americans are going to disagree with you.
  - wutbrodo 13y ago