| 1. $587 a month in many cities in the US will barely rent a room. Even in St. Louis (https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-st-louis-rent-tre... ), average monthly rent for a one bedroom apartment is $1000 a month. In LA, it's over 2000 a month, in NY it's 2700, in Detroit it's at 1000. SNAP (Food stamps) give about $255 a month. That means that out of UBI, about $300 is left over for rent. 2. If everyone in the US gets $587 a month, that's 1.5 trillion a year. The current US federal budget is 3.8 trillion. That's about a quarter of current US federal budget, and we still have to give an actual livable stipend to the truly poor (SNAP, section 8, medicare), some kind of defense, leave some for state/city tax, federal infrastructure programs (freeways/trains). |
Only some will be given free money, and almost all of them will be spent since receivers are poor and cannot save it, would be quite a boost to the economy. It's a very direct way of implementing Keynesian policies.