4 ms·

The output side of BI is naturally attractive. Everybody gets money. How could that not be attractive? I'm just skeptical about how we would fund BI to a level

The output side of BI is naturally attractive. Everybody gets money. How could that not be attractive? I'm just skeptical about how we would fund BI to a level that is meaningful while maintaining some modicum of equitability and equanimity. Just to lift everyone to the poverty line in the USA ($11,770) would require paying out more than $3 trillion in net benefits, or roughly the size of the entire federal budget today.

alexnewman 11y ago
What if it was per family-ish. Then it'd only be about military exp size
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  For poverty line, on a family basis, the incremental cost of another person approaches $5k (compared to $11.7k) so taking families into account the lower bound of payments is $1.5-2 trillion (if all we had were really big families) http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/15poverty.cfm http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/15poverty.cfm
jdmichal 11y ago
Poverty line for each household is $11770 + $4160 per person. Average persons per household is 2.58. So the average cost per household would be $18343. There are 318.9 million people in the US. Divide by persons per household yields 123.6 million households. Multiply the two: $2.267 trillion. Of course, if this is how the math ends up going, there would be a huge incentive ($7610) for two persons to remain "individual households".
ghaff 11y ago
To be sure, in a certain income range, you'd be taking more money out of their left pocket while putting it back into their right pocket. (While simply taking more money on net from higher incomes.) That said: It's 1.) very hard to see how you make the numbers work and 2.) I imagine that if you told a lot of the BI advocates on this thread "Fine, I'll wave a magic wand and give everyone a BI of $10K," the reaction would be "I can't live on that!" (I also assume that someone in the US today right at the poverty line is probably eligible for certain types of assistance that BI proposals would supposedly eliminate.)
macspoofing 11y ago
>The output side of BI is naturally attractive. Everybody gets money. How could that not be attractive? That's not why I find it attractive. Most people would not be satisfied with a basic income. Most people are more ambitious than that. They'll want a condo, a nice car, a nice TV, a nice vacation. That's why they work for more stressful jobs that pay higher than minimum wage work. I like the piece of mind BI gives you, like universal health-care does, like social security does. I know that if I get a run of bad-luck or I fuck up, there is a safety net.

alexnewman 11y ago

What if it was per family-ish. Then it'd only be about military exp size

sliverstorm 11y ago
For poverty line, on a family basis, the incremental cost of another person approaches $5k (compared to $11.7k) so taking families into account the lower bound of payments is $1.5-2 trillion (if all we had were really big families) http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/15poverty.cfm http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/15poverty.cfm

jdmichal 11y ago

Poverty line for each household is $11770 + $4160 per person. Average persons per household is 2.58. So the average cost per household would be $18343. There are 318.9 million people in the US. Divide by persons per household yields 123.6 million households. Multiply the two: $2.267 trillion. Of course, if this is how the math ends up going, there would be a huge incentive ($7610) for two persons to remain "individual households".

ghaff 11y ago

To be sure, in a certain income range, you'd be taking more money out of their left pocket while putting it back into their right pocket. (While simply taking more money on net from higher incomes.) That said: It's 1.) very hard to see how you make the numbers work and 2.) I imagine that if you told a lot of the BI advocates on this thread "Fine, I'll wave a magic wand and give everyone a BI of $10K," the reaction would be "I can't live on that!" (I also assume that someone in the US today right at the poverty line is probably eligible for certain types of assistance that BI proposals would supposedly eliminate.)

macspoofing 11y ago

>The output side of BI is naturally attractive. Everybody gets money. How could that not be attractive? That's not why I find it attractive. Most people would not be satisfied with a basic income. Most people are more ambitious than that. They'll want a condo, a nice car, a nice TV, a nice vacation. That's why they work for more stressful jobs that pay higher than minimum wage work. I like the piece of mind BI gives you, like universal health-care does, like social security does. I know that if I get a run of bad-luck or I fuck up, there is a safety net.