For what it's worth, the experiment in the article didn't give everyone $X directly, the benefit slowly dropped off as their own income increased.
For example, let's assume X to be $30k/year, and a drop-off rate of 50 cents on the dollar. (the experiment used an inflation-adjusted $10k/year, and 50 cent dropoff).
With these assumptions, someone who had no other income at all would get the full benefit. Someone who earned $10k/year would get $25k of benefit, someone who earned $30k/year would get $15k, and someone earning $60k+/year would not receive any benefit at all.
So, let's apply this back-of-the-envelope math.
according to http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032014/perinc/pinc0..., Total Work Experience, Both Sexes, All Races,
there were about 252 million persons 15 or older in the US, 218 million of which had some income reported. Of these, about 174 million with $60k/year or less.
Assuming everyone gets a benefit equal to $30k - 1/2 their income, and everyone's income is at the bottom of their respective bucket, the total cost of this program would be about $3.26 trillion.
This is not a small amount of money, but it would also replace many existing welfare programs (many of which are implemented at the state or city level, effectively transferring budget from the federal to the local)
Comments
For what it's worth, the experiment in the article didn't give everyone $X directly, the benefit slowly dropped off as their own income increased.
For example, let's assume X to be $30k/year, and a drop-off rate of 50 cents on the dollar. (the experiment used an inflation-adjusted $10k/year, and 50 cent dropoff).
With these assumptions, someone who had no other income at all would get the full benefit. Someone who earned $10k/year would get $25k of benefit, someone who earned $30k/year would get $15k, and someone earning $60k+/year would not receive any benefit at all.
So, let's apply this back-of-the-envelope math. according to http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032014/perinc/pinc0..., Total Work Experience, Both Sexes, All Races, there were about 252 million persons 15 or older in the US, 218 million of which had some income reported. Of these, about 174 million with $60k/year or less.
Assuming everyone gets a benefit equal to $30k - 1/2 their income, and everyone's income is at the bottom of their respective bucket, the total cost of this program would be about $3.26 trillion.
This is not a small amount of money, but it would also replace many existing welfare programs (many of which are implemented at the state or city level, effectively transferring budget from the federal to the local)