Which form and scope of UBI is more common in everyone's mind when people think of "UBI". Is it:
1) UBI is a replacement for the wasteful fragmented welfare programs. The "efficiency" gains by consolidating into UBI will pay for most of it and maybe a modest tax increase to round it out. Whatever _that_ amount is, that's what we call UBI. This would be less than $14k a year. It would be just enough for food, living with roommates, and riding public transportation if the recipient didn't share a car.
or
2) UBI is a minimal and comfortable standard of living (home+car+food) so people don't have to work. The release from the stresses of earning a living will unleash a flurry of productivity in art, science, self-improvement. Society would flourish. This type of UBI is much more expensive... maybe about ~$30k.
Which form of UBI dominates the discussion? If it's the 2nd one, I'd argue that's mathematically impossible to provide.
The US budget is about 3.2 trillion. Assuming we don't default on debt or reduce military and assuming we can't remove medicare and health spending and also we don't remove other non entitlement spending you get about $2 trillion that could maybe be reshifted. There are 138 million us tax payers giving each $14k comes out to right at 2 trillion. (Ignoring for now the non tax payers which would double this number and all of the following) The troubling part though is that half of that is social security. Reducing social security payments to that would cripple retired people forced to pay into the system their whole lives and make them live at possibly 10% or less of what was promised. Not putting a lot of faith in the government.
Maybe 1 is feasible under that situation but to not kill social security it would require about 30% tax hike and be an increasingly negative program for anyone making over $46k which is 30% of the population. In my opinion that is idiotic. Logistically it would be a nightmare as congress would have to simultaneously remove a boatload of spending then add a boatload more which would be battled forever. I also have doubts about the capability of many people to responsibly handle the money themselves leading to calls for more entitlement programs to be reinstated or formed.
2 is next level moronic. The increase in average income would likely drive inflation to increasing levels ultimately creating the same effective levels of wealth and poverty as before. That $30k will pay for a car/house maybe in the first year but not really in the third, fourth etc.
I am sceptical of (1), but not certain enough to refuse experimentation. Modern computing makes administration cheap. A lot of UBI literature fails to account for those realised and potential efficiencies.
Comments
Which form and scope of UBI is more common in everyone's mind when people think of "UBI". Is it:
1) UBI is a replacement for the wasteful fragmented welfare programs. The "efficiency" gains by consolidating into UBI will pay for most of it and maybe a modest tax increase to round it out. Whatever _that_ amount is, that's what we call UBI. This would be less than $14k a year. It would be just enough for food, living with roommates, and riding public transportation if the recipient didn't share a car.
or
2) UBI is a minimal and comfortable standard of living (home+car+food) so people don't have to work. The release from the stresses of earning a living will unleash a flurry of productivity in art, science, self-improvement. Society would flourish. This type of UBI is much more expensive... maybe about ~$30k.
Which form of UBI dominates the discussion? If it's the 2nd one, I'd argue that's mathematically impossible to provide.
The US budget is about 3.2 trillion. Assuming we don't default on debt or reduce military and assuming we can't remove medicare and health spending and also we don't remove other non entitlement spending you get about $2 trillion that could maybe be reshifted. There are 138 million us tax payers giving each $14k comes out to right at 2 trillion. (Ignoring for now the non tax payers which would double this number and all of the following) The troubling part though is that half of that is social security. Reducing social security payments to that would cripple retired people forced to pay into the system their whole lives and make them live at possibly 10% or less of what was promised. Not putting a lot of faith in the government.
Maybe 1 is feasible under that situation but to not kill social security it would require about 30% tax hike and be an increasingly negative program for anyone making over $46k which is 30% of the population. In my opinion that is idiotic. Logistically it would be a nightmare as congress would have to simultaneously remove a boatload of spending then add a boatload more which would be battled forever. I also have doubts about the capability of many people to responsibly handle the money themselves leading to calls for more entitlement programs to be reinstated or formed.
2 is next level moronic. The increase in average income would likely drive inflation to increasing levels ultimately creating the same effective levels of wealth and poverty as before. That $30k will pay for a car/house maybe in the first year but not really in the third, fourth etc.
I am sceptical of (1), but not certain enough to refuse experimentation. Modern computing makes administration cheap. A lot of UBI literature fails to account for those realised and potential efficiencies.
Well, government administrations aren't exactly known for their simplicity or efficiency.
Even if not, most support is send conditionally and only to certain people, this requires more checking than sending everyone an unconditional amount.
My impression is that 1) is what most UBI advocates support. It's certainly what I'm interested in getting data on.
Furthermore, any conceivable implementation of 2) would have to go through 1) first.