[IanCal]

> And it's why nobody ever wants to discuss actual numbers.

I do. I want to talk about actual numbers because I think it'll be interesting to work out what might or might not be affordable. But I get rather frustrated that people either provide no numbers or do what you've just done and multiply the basic income amount by the total number of people and go no further.

You're making the assumption that everyone gets $12.5k more post-tax. That's not what many people would propose. There's also a reduction in the number of benefits and other programs that need to be funded (in the UK, anything above £4000 would eliminate the need for job-seekers allowance and several other benefits). SS is $1.2T, but some portion of that would be covered by BI.

The money also doesn't evaporate, one of the arguments in favour of large scale wealth redistribution like this is the people you distribute it to are the ones who are most likely to spend it.

It's an extremely complex issue, and both those saying "everything would be wonderful" and "X * Y = $$$ is too much" are doing it a disservice.